DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A pair of po­lice of­fi­cers have been giv­en the all clear to pur­sue a law­suit over be­ing trans­ferred from an elite tac­ti­cal unit af­ter be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed over po­lice uni­forms that went miss­ing from an of­fice.

The of­fi­cers, whose iden­ti­ties were with­held due to con­cerns raised by their lawyer, Je­han Mo­hammed-Ali, over po­ten­tial ridicule from mem­bers of the pub­lic, were last week grant­ed leave by High Court Judge Jacque­line Wil­son to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view case over their trans­fers.

Ac­cord­ing to their court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, one of the of­fi­cers joined the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in 2012, while the oth­er joined in 2002.

Over the past five years, both of­fi­cers were as­signed to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB), which is re­spon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing crowd and ri­ot con­trol, and high-risk es­corts for se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent and Prime Min­is­ter.

In May last year, the of­fi­cers learned that uni­forms were miss­ing from the unit’s head­quar­ters in Aranguez. Two months lat­er, they vol­un­tar­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in poly­graph test­ing and were ques­tioned about the miss­ing uni­forms.

In late Sep­tem­ber, last year, both of­fi­cers were in­formed that they were be­ing trans­ferred from the unit to po­lice sta­tions in south and cen­tral Trinidad.

In the le­gal cor­re­spon­dence, Mo­hammed-Ali not­ed that her clients were not giv­en pri­or no­tice of the in­ten­tion to trans­fer them and were not al­lowed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions be­fore the de­ci­sion was made.

She claimed that their col­leagues sus­pect­ed that the trans­fers were due to the miss­ing uni­form probe.

“The trans­fer fol­lowed the al­leged theft and poly­graph test­ing which sug­gest­ed in the eyes of the ap­pli­cants’ col­leagues that they were al­so cul­prits in the theft,” she said. Mo­hammed-Ali al­so not­ed that in De­cem­ber 2023, one of the of­fi­cers made a re­port that a se­nior of­fi­cer as­signed to the unit, who has since re­tired, threat­ened to shoot or re­move him from the unit.

She sug­gest­ed that the trans­fers were un­fair, un­rea­son­able and ir­ra­tional as they were not in­formed that they were the sus­pects in the probe, charged or sub­ject­ed to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

Re­fer­ring to sec­tion 68 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, which deals with the pow­er of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to trans­fer po­lice of­fi­cers, Mo­hammed-Ali said: “In the in­stant mat­ter, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice failed to take in­to ac­count any hard­ship that such a trans­fer may oc­ca­sion to the ap­pli­cants.”

“The ap­pli­cants had a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that they would con­tin­ue to re­main in the unit, earn­ing over­time, spe­cialised train­ing and oth­er perks at­tached to this elite unit, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of their ex­pe­ri­ence and train­ing,” she said.

Through the law­suit, the of­fi­cers are seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the de­ci­sion and an or­der di­rect­ing that they be re­in­stat­ed to the unit.

The of­fi­cers will re­main on ac­tive du­ty with­in their new roles un­til the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case.