Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon yes­ter­day con­demned the re­cent killing of a sol­dier and a prison of­fi­cer in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day Dil­lon said there will be swift jus­tice for those who com­mit­ted the of­fences.

On Sat­ur­day, 39-year-old off du­ty Spe­cial Forces Reg­i­ment of­fi­cer Cpl Sher­vaun Charleau died af­ter be­ing shot in the head in a sus­pect­ed rob­bery at­tempt in St James.

And yes­ter­day se­nior pris­ons of­fi­cer David Mil­lette, 50, was killed in Mor­vant.

Dil­lon said he "strong­ly con­demns the re­cent in­crease in homi­cides, es­pe­cial­ly the spate of at­tacks on the lives of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers."

He ex­pressed his con­cern that "of­fi­cers who ded­i­cate their lives to pro­tect and serve the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go are ap­par­ent­ly be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nal el­e­ments."

Dil­lon said law en­force­ment of­fi­cials were treat­ing these in­stances of vi­o­lence against serv­ing of­fi­cers se­ri­ous­ly and are work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to re­solve these cas­es and bring swift jus­tice to the killers.

He al­so as­sured mem­bers of the Pris­ons Ser­vice the Gov­ern­ment would be giv­ing pri­or­i­ty at­ten­tion to strength­en­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of its of­fi­cers. A meet­ing, which was sched­uled last week for the min­is­ter to hold dis­cus­sions with the ex­ec­u­tive of the Pris­ons Ser­vice on prison man­age­ment, will take place to­mor­row.

Dil­lon said he was pledg­ing "his full com­mit­ment to en­sure that the over­all se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus of the coun­try is strength­ened to pro­vide for the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all cit­i­zens."

He said the De­fence Force and Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices "will be giv­en the nec­es­sary tools and re­sources to al­low them to ful­fill their du­ties ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly"

Dil­lon ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of Charleau and Mil­lette.