Derek Achong

Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) founder Ker­ron Clarke has been giv­en the green light to pur­sue a law­suit against the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice over its de­lay in is­su­ing him a Firearm User’s Li­cense (FUL). 

Clarke was grant­ed leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit when it came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day.

In the case, Clarke, a mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force, claimed that he ap­plied for an FUL in 2014 and on­ly re­ceived a re­sponse re­ject­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion, with­out any rea­sons, in 2020. 

Clarke chal­lenged the de­ci­sion be­fore the Firearms Ap­peal Board and in Oc­to­ber, last year, it de­liv­ered a de­ci­sion in which it or­dered that Clarke be grant­ed the FUL. 

Clarke filed the law­suit af­ter the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er claimed that it could not com­ply with the board’s de­ci­sion as the work of Firearms Di­vi­sion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was sus­pend­ed pend­ing a probe in­to al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct in the is­su­ing of FULs. 

Through the law­suit, Clarke is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions that the de­lay was un­rea­son­able and in breach of the of­fice’s statu­to­ry du­ty. 

Ad­dress­ing Kan­ga­loo dur­ing the brief hear­ing, State at­tor­ney San­jiv Lal­la said that he could not re­sist Clarke’s ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to pur­sue the case. 

Lal­la, who stat­ed that he was on­ly ap­point­ed in the case on Wednes­day, said that he would give the TTPS ad­vice that may negate the need for fur­ther lit­i­ga­tion over the is­sue. 

“It is a sim­ple and nar­row is­sue and I think it would be rea­son­able if good con­science and sense pre­vails,” Lal­la said. 

Clarke’s lawyer Rosario Sookdeo said that while he and his client was hope­ful that the case could be set­tled be­fore go­ing to tri­al, he called on Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo to grant­ed leave while dis­cus­sions were on­go­ing. 

“We want­ed good sense to pre­vail be­fore fil­ing this mat­ter,” Sookdeo said. 

Kan­ga­loo agreed, grant­ed leave and ad­journed the case to Oc­to­ber 18 while ad­vis­ing the par­ties that they could no­ti­fy the court if there is an up­date in the case. 

In Sep­tem­ber 2020, of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and oth­er di­vi­sions raid­ed DSS’s head­quar­ters at Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve in La Hor­quet­ta and al­leged­ly seized $22 mil­lion. 

The mon­ey was lodged at the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion but was lat­er re­turned. 
Two se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers from Bar­ba­dos were re­cruit­ed to probe the in­ci­dent. 

Al­most $6 mil­lion was seized dur­ing sub­se­quent raids on the lo­ca­tion and are cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of for­fei­ture pro­ceed­ings. 

Clarke was charged with two of­fences un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act and was grant­ed $300,000 bail. 

One of the charges al­leges that be­tween May 2019 and Feb­ru­ary 2021, Clarke,  as an un­li­censed money­len­der, re­ceived a tele­vi­sion as col­lat­er­al for a loan, which the re­cip­i­ent was un­able to re­pay. 

He is al­so ac­cused of re­ceiv­ing $1,850 in in­ter­est on a loan while run­ning a money­len­der’s busi­ness with­out a li­cense. He has de­nied any wrong­do­ing. 

The Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by San­jiv Sookoo.  

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