Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Eight po­lice of­fi­cers were ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day as part of the probe in­to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Firearm Users Li­cens­es by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Firearms Sec­tion.

The ar­rests marked a day of trou­ble for law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, as in an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, three sol­diers were al­so de­tained in con­nec­tion with the al­leged kid­nap­ping of a mur­der vic­tim.

The ar­rests of the po­lice of­fi­cers in the FUL probe were con­firmed by the head of the TTPS’ Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment Joanne Archie.

Not giv­ing much away, Archie said fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the ar­rests would be giv­en as in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able. She stressed that the FUL in­ves­ti­ga­tion was still on­go­ing.

There was no con­fir­ma­tion that those de­tained were charged.

Con­tact­ed on the ar­rests, for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, un­der whose tenure the probe was start­ed, said he had no com­ment since the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was still open.

Last Sep­tem­ber, five po­lice of­fi­cers and two civil­ians were charged in con­nec­tion with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Among the charges were firearm pos­ses­sion for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

PC Lyn­don Bish­op, PC Chris Tir­ban­ie, ASP Aaron Be­deau and Sgt David Swan­son are among the of­fi­cers who were pre­vi­ous­ly charged. Civil­ians Dil­lon Go­sine and Mukesh Go­sine were al­so charged.

More than 26 charges have so far been laid dur­ing the course of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In De­cem­ber 2021, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced that a six-mem­ber team, com­pris­ing three for­mer po­lice of­fi­cers—re­tired ACP Welling­ton Vir­gil, re­tired ACP Ray­mond Craig and re­tired In­spec­tor Lennard Charles—would con­duct an au­dit of the firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and as­pects of the FULs is­sued in the past three years.

Pri­or to that, re­tired Ap­peal Court Judge Stan­ley John in­ves­ti­gat­ed al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in­to the FUL sys­tem af­ter re­ceiv­ing au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Last De­cem­ber, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour SC said the of­fice in­tend­ed to file an ap­peal against Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad’s rul­ing grant­i­ng an in­junc­tion against the Prime Min­is­ter lay­ing a sum­ma­ry of the FUL au­dit re­port of the Firearms Au­dit Com­mit­tee in Par­lia­ment.