Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Giv­en the high pub­lic in­ter­est and var­i­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties for a mo­tive, sev­er­al high-pro­file po­lice units have been in­struct­ed to as­sist the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mur­der of spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor.

Hec­tor, 43, was gunned down out­side a Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church on the cor­ner of Stan­more Av­enue and Al­bion Street, Port-of-Spain on Old Year’s Night.

Po­lice said gun­men in a black SUV and a Nis­san B15 drove near Hec­tor’s ve­hi­cle and shot him sev­er­al times. He died at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Thir­teen spent 9 mm shells were found.

Hec­tor worked as a le­gal of­fi­cer with the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) and up to the time of his death was as­signed to the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) where he was re­spon­si­ble for pros­e­cut­ing a re­put­ed gang leader.

An of­fi­cer as­signed to an in­ves­tiga­tive unit con­firmed that the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), the Spe­cial Branch, the Cy­ber Crime Unit, the Re­search and Analy­sis Unit (RAU) and the Crim­i­nal Gang In­tel­li­gence Unit, will be sup­port­ing the work of homi­cide de­tec­tives in their in­quiry.

The ad­di­tion­al re­sources were al­lo­cat­ed to give of­fi­cers “the best chance of suc­cess,” in find­ing Hec­tor’s killers, the of­fi­cer ex­plained.

“They’re push­ing a lot of strength and re­sources be­hind this be­cause they want ac­tion­able re­sults with­in the next three months at least. With the state of emer­gency (SoE) un­der­way of­fi­cers are work­ing longer hours so they will be on the ball and work­ing to gath­er as much in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble.

“En­quiries will be run­ning longer con­tin­u­ous­ly to get re­sults but the con­cern is whether enough ev­i­dence could be gath­ered to meet the nec­es­sary thresh­olds,” he said.

While wit­ness state­ments have al­ready been gath­ered, the of­fi­cer said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are view­ing CCTV footage of the mur­der to try and iden­ti­fy the ve­hi­cles used.

Me­dia re­ports sug­gest­ed that a pos­si­ble mo­tive for Hec­tor’s mur­der was his role as a pros­e­cu­tor in the case against a man de­scribed as a “ma­jor un­der­world fig­ure” who had been the tar­get of a re­cent mur­der at­tempt.

At a me­dia brief­ing in To­ba­go on Fri­day af­ter­noon, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley lament­ed Hec­tor’s mur­der and com­ment­ed on the will­ing­ness of crim­i­nals to use vi­o­lence to send a warn­ing.

“I’ve al­so been told and have ex­pe­ri­enced many in­stances of wit­ness­es be­ing harmed or killed. This is the crim­i­nal el­e­ment say­ing, ‘I am not pre­pared to sub­ject my­self to be­ing re­strained in the prison or I am not pre­pared to have any lawyer stand up in the court and put up any case against me.’

“I am pre­pared to put fear in­to the hearts of those who will re­place the one (at­tor­ney) who I have re­moved and this is fear as pro­tec­tion for the crim­i­nal.”

Po­lice said an in­tel­li­gence brief­ing held last week did not out­line any clear in­tel­li­gence to sug­gest Hec­tor’s work as a pros­e­cu­tor led to his mur­der.

“For now, it’s pre­ma­ture to say de­fin­i­tive­ly what the mo­tive is. There are a lot of peo­ple to in­ter­view from all an­gles to ver­i­fy and cross-ref­er­ence what is be­ing said. If in­for­ma­tion does arise that this may be the re­sult of a gang seek­ing to send a mes­sage then per­sons in the DPP’s of­fice may be in­ter­viewed to see if he (Hec­tor) was threat­ened or not.

“If in­for­ma­tion aris­es that it may be as a re­sult of his work with the SSA, we will have to find out who he has been talk­ing to and what in­for­ma­tion he was privy to. We are not rul­ing any­thing out,” a source said.