Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Galil ri­fle that went miss­ing from the T&T De­fence Force’s head­quar­ters at Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas last Sat­ur­day, was re­cov­ered by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in the Mac­queripe area yes­ter­day.

Two in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a sol­dier, have al­so been de­tained and are ex­pect­ed to face charges in con­nec­tion with the mat­ter.

Be­fore yes­ter­day’s find­ing, some five days had passed since the army-is­sued as­sault ri­fle was re­port­ed miss­ing from the Sup­port and Ser­vice Bat­tal­ion of the T&T Reg­i­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to law en­force­ment sources, the ri­fle and its mag­a­zine were found in a plas­tic bag in bush­es. How­ev­er, the con­di­tion of the weapon was not dis­closed up to last evening.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Tem­ple Court, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said, “Up­on the dis­cov­ery of the miss­ing weapon, a num­ber of op­er­a­tions were con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween all arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty over the last cou­ple of days. At 1 pm to­day (Fri­day), the Galil as­sault ri­fle, to­geth­er with the mag­a­zine, was dis­cov­ered in the Mac­queripe area as a re­sult of a tip passed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

He added, “I al­so wish to re­port to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that two per­sons re­main in po­lice cus­tody in re­la­tion to the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the po­lice are ex­pect­ing to lay charges against two in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, in con­nec­tion with the miss­ing weapon.”

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had of­fered a re­ward of $75,000 for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of those re­spon­si­ble for the dis­ap­pear­ance of the as­sault ri­fle.

But Gon­za­les not­ed, “The per­son did not iden­ti­fy them­selves, nor did they re­quest any re­ward for the in­for­ma­tion that was pro­vid­ed to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices.”

He fur­ther ex­plained, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, along with their sup­port ser­vices, will con­tin­ue to con­duct a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­clud­ing fin­ger­print­ing and all oth­er nec­es­sary pro­ce­dures, to de­ter­mine the ori­gin and po­ten­tial use of the firearm. At this point in time, we do not have any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion to share re­gard­ing whether the firearm was used in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties against the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The op­er­a­tion to lo­cate the as­sault weapon was led by in­tel­li­gence units of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and De­fence Force.

Act­ing Com­man­der of the T&T Reg­i­ment, Lieu­tenant Colonel Ashook Ali, who was al­so at the me­dia con­fer­ence, re­vealed that mea­sures are now be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to pre­vent such in­ci­dents from oc­cur­ring again.

“I would like to in­form you that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment has ro­bust stand­ing op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures and reg­u­la­tions re­gard­ing the use, stor­age and man­age­ment of weapons and am­mu­ni­tion. As part of this ro­bust sys­tem, a board of in­quiry has been con­vened to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive in­quiry in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to this un­usu­al oc­cur­rence and pre­vent its re­cur­rence,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the in­ves­ti­ga­tors have sub­mit­ted files to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for in­struc­tions on what charges to pur­sue against the two sus­pects.