Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment of en­abling the for­ma­tion of a crim­i­nal syn­di­cate in­side the prison sys­tem af­ter group­ing gang lead­ers to­geth­er in Build­ing 13 at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­rit­ty Prison, dur­ing the tenure of then min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young.

Speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives dur­ing the de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to clus­ter high-risk in­mates at the MSP in Arou­ca cre­at­ed the con­di­tions for gang co­or­di­na­tion and crim­i­nal op­er­a­tions be­hind bars.

“Then, as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the mem­ber brought his pen out. What did he do? He took all the main king­pins and he put them in a build­ing called Build­ing 13,” she said, re­fer­ring to Stu­art Young, MP for Port-of-Spain North and St Ann’s West.

“All these king­pins co­or­di­nat­ed, be­came a syn­di­cate when you placed them in that Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Build­ing 13,” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed not on­ly were the in­mates al­lowed to com­mu­ni­cate and or­gan­ise from with­in the fa­cil­i­ty, but they were al­so giv­en ac­cess to lux­u­ry ameni­ties.

“They ripped out every­thing. The crim­i­nals ripped out every­thing in Build­ing 13. Then the build­ing was no longer a max­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty build­ing,” she said.

“Put them to watch 65-inch TV. What was hap­pen­ing in Build­ing 13 when you thought you put all these king­pins, all these dan­gers ...?” But for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and cur­rent MP for Lopinot/Bon Air West, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, re­ject­ed her claims, ac­cus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy and mis­in­for­ma­tion.

“In mak­ing that point, the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused the Mem­ber for Port-of-Spain North and St Ann’s West of putting to­geth­er the Build­ing 13 and ac­cused the mem­ber that that same Build­ing 13 al­lowed pris­on­ers and gang lead­ers to col­lab­o­rate to ex­e­cute their crim­i­nal­i­ty on Trinidad and To­ba­go.Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth,” Gon­za­les said.

He ex­plained that the de­ci­sion to re­lo­cate high-risk of­fend­ers to Build­ing 13 was made specif­i­cal­ly to pre­vent col­lab­o­ra­tion among gang lead­ers, not to fa­cil­i­tate it.

“The rea­son why they were moved to that build­ing, Block 13, was to pre­vent that from hap­pen­ing,” he said. Gon­za­les said gov­ern­ments put struc­tures in place but de­pend on pub­lic of­fi­cers to car­ry out the poli­cies ef­fec­tive­ly.

“We put things in place and we de­pend on em­ploy­ees, we de­pend on of­fi­cials who op­er­ate the sys­tem to do what they must do so that the cit­i­zens of this coun­try can be pro­tect­ed,” he said.

He then turned the crit­i­cism back on Per­sad-Bisses­sar, claim­ing that some of the same high-pri­or­i­ty de­tainees were now housed to­geth­er at Teteron Bar­racks un­der her ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I am re­li­ably in­formed that where they are stay­ing, they are stay­ing to­geth­er in Teteron Bar­racks to do ex­act­ly what we hope that they are not do­ing,” he said.

“Clear­ly, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter is not aware that in Teteron Bar­racks, they are to­geth­er do­ing ex­act­ly what she ac­cused the Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber for Port-of- Spain North and St Ann’s West of do­ing.” Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­cerns re­gard­ing Build­ing 13.

Gor­don said the fa­cil­i­ty was orig­i­nal­ly built as a pre-re­lease cen­tre and nev­er in­tend­ed to hold high-risk of­fend­ers.

“It was de­signed as a step-down fa­cil­i­ty for peo­ple who are go­ing home prob­a­bly with­in the next six months, to get them re-ac­cli­ma­tised, do­ing things on their own, and mak­ing that tran­si­tion back in­to so­ci­ety,” he said. Gor­don al­so con­firmed that the as­so­ci­a­tion for­mal­ly op­posed the de­ci­sion to re­pur­pose Build­ing 13.

“I want to say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that we have al­ways ob­ject­ed to that move, and we see to­day the re­sult of that ac­tion which was tak­en.”

He called for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to prison op­er­a­tions and the con­struc­tion of a new, pur­pose-built re­mand fa­cil­i­ty, say­ing the sit­u­a­tion in­side the sys­tem is dire.

“We need to build a fa­cil­i­ty that adds val­ue to what we do and en­sures we are able to meet our man­date,” he said.

He al­so urged trans­paren­cy.

“The prison needs to be laid open and laid bare so that every­one is aware of what is hap­pen­ing and what we are do­ing. It should not be a se­cret what we do, since we do all that we do for and on be­half of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gor­don said.