A promi­nent at­tor­ney says there is no con­flict of in­ter­est by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­fer­ring the Fly­ing Squad is­sue to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.Se­nior Coun­sel Regi­nald Ar­mour said it was the le­git­i­mate func­tion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to in­ves­ti­gate breach­es of the law.

He said the per­cep­tion that a con­flict of in­ter­est arose for the act­ing CoP to in­ves­ti­gate among oth­er peo­ple the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, ap­peared to ex­ist be­cause a view has been giv­en cre­dence that the min­is­ter is the act­ing top cop's "boss."Ar­mour said, "That is not so."The con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to ap­point and to re­move a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice vests in the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, he ex­plained.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Ar­mour said, how­ev­er, the cen­tral ques­tion, whether such a squad had been es­tab­lished from with­in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and was aid­ed, abet­ted and op­er­a­tional as a qua­si-po­lice unit with­out the knowl­edge and/or ap­proval of the CoP, cer­tain­ly raised ques­tions of il­le­gal­i­ty com­mit­ted by peo­ple known or un­known, war­rant­i­ng ur­gent po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.