Al­though his act­ing ap­point­ment was not de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, ACP Wayne Mys­tar’s rec­om­men­da­tion is valid for one year and could be brought back. 

This comes as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion over her sup­posed role in the repa­tri­a­tion of gun deal­er Brent Thomas from Bar­ba­dos in 2022.  

Thomas, 61, was de­tained while await­ing a flight to the Unit­ed States and lat­er charged with three counts of pos­ses­sion of firearms and four counts of pos­ses­sion of ex­plo­sives. 

His ar­rest and re­turn are cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of court pro­ceed­ings. On June 13, Par­lia­ment was sched­uled to de­bate the ap­point­ments of Mys­tar along with Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for act­ing DCP and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, re­spec­tive­ly. On­ly Gue­var­ro’s mat­ter was de­bat­ed and passed with full bi-par­ti­san sup­port. 

Asked about this yes­ter­day, the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Bar­ry Padarath said the need to de­bate it be­came moot. He added that Mys­tar was to act in place of Mar­tin, how­ev­er, by the time the mat­ter was brought to Par­lia­ment for de­bate, Mar­tin had al­ready re­turned. 

Mys­tar’s name was sub­mit­ted by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), which is man­dat­ed by law to cre­ate a mer­it list for act­ing or con­firmed po­si­tions of the four top po­lice po­si­tions—three deputies and a com­mis­sion­er. The mer­it list has a life span of one year.