SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

It’s been two months since An­drew Mor­ris and Joel Bal­con died while in po­lice cus­tody af­ter be­ing held in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of court clerk An­drea Bharatt.

The two men were de­tained for ques­tion­ing soon af­ter Bharatt’s ab­duc­tion.

Mor­ris, who has been de­scribed as a known drug deal­er from Tumpuna, Ari­ma, was de­tained by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) on Jan­u­ary 31. His fam­i­ly has claimed he was beat­en by po­lice in their pres­ence. He died on Feb­ru­ary 1 at the hos­pi­tal.

Bal­con, de­scribed as a mas­ter­mind in Bharatt’s kid­nap­ping, had an ex­ten­sive po­lice record for sex­u­al of­fences, drugs, firearms, rob­bery and lar­ce­ny. Po­lice claimed he tried to es­cape cus­tody and was sub­dued. This led to his hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion with se­vere in­juries to his head and body. He was al­so paral­ysed. Bal­con died on Feb­ru­ary 8.

Au­top­sies on both men re­vealed they died from blunt force trau­ma.

A po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing SORT and An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) of­fi­cers has since been start­ed.

The man over­see­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, told Guardian Me­dia it has reached the halfway point and ASPs Williams and Joseph, from the North­ern Di­vi­sion, were spear­head­ing it.

Ja­cob clar­i­fied that at this point, no of­fi­cers had been de­tained, ar­rest­ed or charged with any of­fence. So far, sev­en SORT of­fi­cers and five AKU of­fi­cers have been in­ter­viewed at the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion.

“Re­ports were tak­en from all of them. Now, we are go­ing through the process of re-in­ter­view­ing most of the per­sons who had giv­en re­ports. At the end of that ex­er­cise we will re­turn to the DPP for fur­ther guid­ance and we will know what di­rec­tion we are go­ing in with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” Ja­cob said.

“There are per­sons be­ing in­ter­viewed at dif­fer­ent lev­els, there are some who will be in­ter­viewed on their own be­cause of the part they played and there are oth­ers who are per­mit­ted to have their at­tor­neys present when the in­ter­view is be­ing con­duct­ed.”

He said the in­ter­views will con­tin­ue in­to the week­end and are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by Tues­day. Ja­cob said when that is com­plet­ed, a file will be com­piled to be tak­en to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. He said at this point, there can be no de­ter­mi­na­tion on whether charges will be laid against any of­fi­cer.

“At the end of it, all state­ments tak­en and all ev­i­dence will be co-min­gled and dealt with, to­geth­er with the DPP and a de­ci­sion will be made - the point of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not just about charg­ing per­sons but al­so ex­on­er­at­ing per­sons if al­le­ga­tions are made, so we are do­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion based on that,” he said.

“If at the end of the day, in the wis­dom and knowl­edge of the DPP and team, there are chances that per­son are to be charged, they will be. As any oth­er role and route that we take when we are do­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, is to say whether or not any­one will be charged, will be on­ly at the con­clu­sion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion we will be able to say.”

He said the in­ves­ti­ga­tors are al­so as­sist­ing the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the deaths. Ja­cob said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so has a dif­fer­ent lev­el, where of­fi­cers can be dis­ci­plined with­in their own de­part­ments. He said in a week’s time, in­ves­ti­ga­tors will know whether any charges will be laid. Un­til then, the of­fi­cers re­main on ac­tive du­ty.