One week af­ter a Galil as­sault ri­fle and one mag­a­zine were re­port­ed miss­ing from the Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas, a sol­dier and a Tu­na­puna man have been charged.

In a re­lease from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on Sun­day, of­fi­cials con­firmed that charges had been prof­fered against Pri­vate Re­nal­do Wan­za and Bran­don Moon­sam­my, a civil­ian, based on ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, SC.

The firearm was re­port­ed miss­ing from the Sup­port and Ser­vice Bat­tal­ion on June 3.

A $75,000 re­ward was lat­er of­fered by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for any in­for­ma­tion which could have led to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of any­one re­spon­si­ble for the ri­fle’s dis­ap­pear­ance dur­ing the five days it was un­ac­count­ed for.

On June 9, of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment and the West­ern Di­vi­sion Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit were di­rect­ed to the Golf Course Road, Ch­aguara­mas in the vicin­i­ty of Bellerand Recre­ation­al Park, where the ri­fle and mag­a­zine with four rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion were found in a black garbage bag which had been placed at the side of an aban­doned con­crete struc­ture.

Of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Crime Scene Unit se­cured and ex­am­ined the ri­fle and am­mu­ni­tion which they lat­er con­firmed to be the re­port­ed miss­ing items.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Fri­day, act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, said the in­for­mant had not iden­ti­fied him­self/her­self, and had not re­quest­ed the re­ward for as­sist­ing in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Fol­low­ing the re­cov­ery of the gun and am­mu­ni­tion on Fri­day, the TTPS said: “The lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor and team had an au­di­ence with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard SC, who ad­vised that Pri­vate Re­nal­do Wan­za, 22, be charged with two counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice; one count to wit the lar­ce­ny of the Galil as­sault ri­fle and the oth­er count to wit the sub­se­quent trans­fer of same, pos­ses­sion of a pro­hib­it­ed weapon and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion.”

The TTPS said Gas­pard al­so in­struct­ed that Bran­don Moon­sam­my, 30, of Ma­coya Set­tle­ment, Tu­na­puna, be charged joint­ly with Wan­za with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice by trans­fer­ring a firearm and re­ceiv­ing the weapon know­ing that it had been stolen.

The TTPS said de­spite charges be­ing laid, in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Al­so on Fri­day at the brief­ing, act­ing Com­man­der Of­fi­cer of T&T Reg­i­ment, Lieu­tenant Colonel Ashook Singh, de­scribed the in­ci­dent as very se­ri­ous and said the au­thor­i­ties were work­ing to­geth­er to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

Chief of De­fence Staff, Air Vice Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel al­so re­ferred to the in­ci­dent as very dis­turb­ing.