Jensen La Vende 

Three for­mer mem­bers of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), in­clud­ing self-pro­claimed spy pas­tor Ian Brown, ap­peared in court yes­ter­day charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. 

The trio, Brown, Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, a for­mer tac­ti­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer, and Suzan Portell-Grif­fith, a for­mer se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor with the SSA, were each grant­ed $500,000 in bail to cov­er their charges. 

Brown is al­leged to have mis­be­haved by hav­ing in his pos­ses­sion four pro­hib­it­ed firearms, name­ly two Sig Sauer MPX, two Sig Sauer 516, and 360 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion on March 5. 

His co-ac­cused are al­leged to have trans­ferred, with­out law­ful au­thor­i­ty, the same four guns and 360 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion on April 29, 2021. 

All three were or­dered to re­port to the po­lice sta­tion near­est to them—Brown and Wal­dron at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion and Portell-Grif­fith at the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion every oth­er Sat­ur­day. They will reap­pear be­fore Mas­ter Shabaana Shah on June 27. 

The lengthy ad­journ­ment was giv­en to al­low Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC, time to pros­e­cute the mat­ter. 

The charges are that on April 29, 2021, the guns and am­mu­ni­tion were loaned, with­out au­thor­i­ty from the SSA, by the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) to the Guard Unit to be used for guard du­ties at the Cu­mu­to Camp, Waller­field. It is al­leged that the Guard Unit nev­er re­ceived the guns and am­mu­ni­tion. 

Be­tween Feb­ru­ary 9 and 19, an au­dit of the SSA was done, and the guns were not found. On March 5, Brown is al­leged to have hand­ed over the guns and am­mu­ni­tion to the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force, which re­placed SORT af­ter it was dis­band­ed. 

Dis­missed SSA di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best was not charged, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against him are on­go­ing. 

Weeks af­ter the au­dit, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Cab­i­net ad­vised that Best be sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave as the top spy agency un­der­went a com­plete au­dit by for­mer am­bas­sador to the US, re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer. 

Best was fired on Sat­ur­day. 

At a me­dia brief­ing on Sun­day, on his re­turn from In­dia, Dr Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment was “blind­sided” by al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing with­in the SSA. 

“Some of what has been un­earthed in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been quite trou­ble­some with im­pres­sions of crim­i­nal con­duct,” he said.

“We ex­pect that we will rec­ti­fy and re­turn the agency to its pur­pose.”