Geisha Kow­lessar

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith says Laven­tille has be­come the "safest ever in years," adding that sol­diers will not be moved from the area.He al­so called for a "mid­dle-ground" to be es­tab­lished as sol­diers dai­ly were putting their lives on the line and were im­po­tent to make ar­rests. He made it clear he was not de­mand­ing that sol­diers be giv­en pow­ers of ar­rest.

Grif­fith said so at a press con­fer­ence at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Al­so in at­ten­dance were act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and Chief of De­fence Staff Ma­jor Gen Ken­rick Ma­haraj.With­in re­cent weeks there has been crit­i­cism from mem­bers of the pub­lic, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, and from some Laven­tille res­i­dents, and Williams about sol­diers pa­trolling on their own and wear­ing masks.

On the di­rec­tive giv­en for sol­diers to be called out, Williams said that was raised at a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing ear­li­er this year when 19 mur­ders were record­ed in Jan­u­ary.He ex­plained: "We had a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing. The clear man­date giv­en was to en­sure T&T was re­turned to a lev­el of peace and safe­ty. Com­ing out of that we launched a 2014 op­er­a­tion heav­i­ly built around the ar­eas where we were fac­ing our great­est chal­lenge. Laven­tille has been the dom­i­nant area for many years.

"That op­er­a­tion has been run­ning from Jan­u­ary and it has been height­ened with­in re­cent times. The Chief of De­fence Staff and I would have joined and we shaped an op­er­a­tion to dri­ve vi­o­lent crimes down."The man­date came from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. The head, the Prime Min­is­ter, went pub­lic and shared with you the man­date giv­en to the se­cu­ri­ty forces."On sta­tis­tics on sol­dier abuse the act­ing top cop said he had triple-checked, even be­fore the press con­fer­ence, and there were none.

"In re­la­tion to the very said peo­ple who have com­plained in the do­main of the me­dia, they have not made a sin­gle com­plaint to any of the po­lice sta­tions."I have no com­plaints in Cen­tral Di­vi­sion. I have checked with Mor­vant, Besson Street, Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion and there is no com­plaint from the in­di­vid­u­als," Williams said.At last week's press con­fer­ence Williams said sol­diers who went on pa­trols and on op­er­a­tions on their own were act­ing il­le­gal­ly and warned that they could be ar­rest­ed.

On whether Dil­lon "Bandy" Skeete, said to be the tar­get of search­es by sol­diers, was want­ed for homi­cides, Williams said that was not the case.

Op­er­a­tions au­tho­rised–Ma­haraj

Say­ing there was "great anx­i­ety' sur­round­ing the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the op­er­a­tions Ma­haraj said: "The Chief of De­fence Staff with the pow­ers vest­ed in him is the au­thor­i­ty for all op­er­a­tions re­gard­ing mem­bers of the De­fence Force."The op­er­a­tions in Laven­tille and en­vi­rons con­sti­tute op­er­a­tions that are au­tho­rised by the Chief of De­fence Staff. All op­er­a­tions in the Laven­tille ar­eas are con­sid­ered le­git­i­mate op­er­a­tions be­cause they are in sup­port of the po­lice."

On the pur­pose of sol­diers in Laven­tille giv­en the fact they have no pow­ers of ar­rests Ma­haraj said over the years in re­spect to joint op­er­a­tions and giv­en the changes in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment there has been a "sig­nif­i­cant re­fine­ment" in the con­cept of op­er­a­tions.

There were three main fea­tures of joint op­er­a­tions, he added, which in­clud­ed a well-de­fined com­mand and con­trol frame­work, a well-de­fined area of op­er­a­tions in which com­mon mis­sions and tasks were un­der­tak­en and the un­der­stand­ing that pri­ma­cy resided with law en­force­ment.Ma­haraj said the De­fence Force was in­ves­ti­gat­ing two re­ports made by two men stem­ming from the op­er­a­tions and these were on­go­ing probes.