RALPH BAN­WARIE

Sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers have now been charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice in the TTPS Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dard Bu­reau’s con­tin­u­ing probe in­to com­plaints by San­gre Grande busi­ness­men that they were be­ing ex­tort­ed by a group of of­fi­cers.

Five more of­fi­cers, Ag Cpl Sa­heed Khan, PCs Da­vanan Rag­bir, Macai Joseph, Ja­son O’Souna and SRP Ray­on Charles, were charged yes­ter­day, af­ter they were sum­moned to re­port to the PSB on Mon­day.

They joined In­spec­tor Deyal Ram­lakhan and PC Cleon Smith, who ap­peared in court last week charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice by mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of more than $12,000 be­fore be­ing grant­ed $250,000 bail by Se­nior Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael. These two of­fi­cers were al­so hit with ad­di­tion­al charges yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia was told.

Two fe­male of­fi­cers, who were part of the group of sev­en of­fi­cers asked to re­port to the PSB on Mon­day, were re­leased that same day with­out any charges be­ing laid against them.

The sev­en of­fi­cers were at­tached to a spe­cial unit in the East­ern Di­vi­sion and were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice. How­ev­er, af­ter their ini­tial de­ten­tion in the mat­ter, they were re­leased af­ter pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters for writ of habeas cor­pus were sent to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice by their at­tor­neys.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS con­firmed that all sev­en of­fi­cers were charged af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a video show­ing cash be­ing seized.

The video was cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia re­cent­ly with its au­thor claim­ing his rel­a­tive had been the vic­tim of ex­tor­tion by po­lice of­fi­cers.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions were spear­head­ed by Sr Supt Suzette Mar­tin, su­per­vised by Supt Mon­trichard, and in­clud­ed ASP Birch, In­sp. Guy and Ag Cpl Joe­field.

The sev­en are due to ap­pear at the San­gre Grande Mag­is­trate’s Court to­day.