Geisha Kow­lessar

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi says he has no con­fi­dence the as­sas­si­na­tion of Dana See­ta­hal, SC, will be solved by lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers. He is urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to bring in for­eign help with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.His com­ments come in wake of the fact that the po­lice are yet to make a break­through in See­ta­hal's killing.There have been calls from all sec­tors of the so­ci­ety for swift ac­tion to bring the killers to jus­tice. It has been four days since See­ta­hal was killed.

Al-Rawi said the ba­sis for the PNM's lack of con­fi­dence in the Po­lice Ser­vice lay in the dra­mat­ic fall in the de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate of mur­ders from 36 per cent to un­der ten per cent.

He not­ed: "Oth­er is­sues which must be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion are the Po­lice Ser­vice's lack of con­clu­sion in the e-mail gate is­sue, its lack of con­clu­sion in the $17 mil­lion heist and mur­der of a se­cu­ri­ty guard which took place last No­vem­ber, its lack of con­clu­sion in the im­por­ta­tion of chick­en well sea­soned with mar­i­jua­na and its lack of con­clu­sion in the mat­ter of co­caine in juice cans.

"The Po­lice Ser­vice does not boast of any form of track record which will en­cour­age con­fi­dence in the cit­i­zens that they are ca­pa­ble of bring­ing home a con­vic­tion in Dana See­ta­hal's as­sas­si­na­tion."He made it clear his state­ment was not an at­tack on po­lice of­fi­cers but rather a se­ri­ous crit­i­cism of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment which was re­spon­si­ble for dis­man­tling all of the coun­try's se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems in 2010.

"That has left us in a po­si­tion where I do not have faith this mat­ter would be dealt with with­out the as­sis­tance of for­eign ex­per­tise."In the cir­cum­stances, I pray that the Gov­ern­ment and the coun­try will make avail­able the nec­es­sary ex­per­tise to bring home a so­lu­tion in the See­ta­hal's as­sas­si­na­tion and more par­tic­u­lar every se­ri­ous crime," Al-Rawi said.

He added that Gov­ern­ment had re­fused to ac­cept the PNM's in­vi­ta­tion to amend the law to al­low for an im­me­di­ate ap­point­ment of a po­lice com­mis­sion­er and had re­fused to con­duct a man­pow­er au­dit of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.He said: "The com­bi­na­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice's dis­mal record and the Gov­ern­ment's ab­di­ca­tion of its role of cre­at­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for the Po­lice Ser­vice to bet­ter it­self, left alone to func­tion, equals to a trag­ic re­sult for T&T."

UK ready to as­sist

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith says apart from the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom al­so was ready to join with lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to hunt down See­ta­hal's killers. How­ev­er, he re­it­er­at­ed he did not be­lieve it was nec­es­sary at this time for T&T to call in for­eign help.

He said: "I have spo­ken to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams to­day (yes­ter­day) and we have met with rel­e­vant of­fi­cials through the US em­bassy. I have al­so made con­tact, through the British High Com­mis­sion, and a spe­cial­ly as­signed unit able to sup­port our law en­force­ment agen­cies is al­ready on stand­by.

"But I do not think at this time it is nec­es­sary. This is a mam­moth in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It is not just pin­point­ing an in­di­vid­ual and grab­bing the per­son. You have to look at every sin­gle an­gle."He said he al­ready had re­ceived con­fi­den­tial re­ports from the in­tel­li­gence agen­cies and was hope­ful a break­through would be made in the quick­est pos­si­ble time. What is more crit­i­cal, he added, was de­vel­op­ing hu­man in­tel­li­gence where in­for­ma­tion was passed on to the po­lice from mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Ev­i­dence must stand up

For­mer as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions, at­tor­ney In­dra Ra­moutar-Liv­er­pool, says it was not just a mat­ter of ar­rest­ing per­pe­tra­tors but rather get­ting ev­i­dence which could stand up be­yond a rea­son­able doubt in court in the See­ta­hal case.

"In a crim­i­nal case you must have ev­i­dence to stand up be­yond a rea­son­able doubt. You have to have wit­ness­es who are will­ing to come for­ward and must be af­ford­ed some sort of pro­tec­tion."They al­so need to bring the mat­ter ear­ly to court be­cause if they don't it will sim­ply die a nat­ur­al death," Ra­moutar-Liv­er­pool said.

On if she be­lieved the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme was ef­fi­cient, she said there were rules which must be fol­lowed and in some in­stances peo­ple had been placed in the pro­gramme and did not sub­scribed to the rules.