Al­though the State of Emer­gency (SoE) end­ed on April 13 and re­sult­ed in 14 peo­ple be­ing charged with crim­i­nal of­fences, in­ves­ti­ga­tions have con­tin­ued.

This was re­vealed by T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) le­gal of­fi­cer Cpl Za­heer Ali who said that “sub­se­quent to the SoE, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions have pro­gressed ev­i­den­tial­ly”.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Ali added, “In some in­stances, those in­ves­tiga­tive files are en­gag­ing the le­gal of­fi­cers in the TTPS and in some in­stances, con­sul­ta­tions are on­go­ing with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, so I an­tic­i­pate that in the near fu­ture and with­in a rea­son­able time, our Com­mis­sion­er will be able to re­spond as to whether in fact those cas­es have in fact ma­tured to at­tract pros­e­cu­tions.”

Asked if there had been any chal­lenges by any of the peo­ple de­tained dur­ing the SoE, Ali avoid­ed an­swer­ing di­rect­ly.

“When you are deal­ing with or­gan­ised crime and gang in­ves­ti­ga­tions, those are com­plex mat­ters and when you are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on wit­ness­es to come for­ward, it def­i­nite­ly will cre­ate a chal­lenge,” he said.

How­ev­er, he as­sured, “We are think­ing out of the box. We are ex­plor­ing the law and we have made some progress.”