The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged dis­ap­pear­ance of seized am­mu­ni­tion from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s pos­ses­sion.

It al­so not­ed that sev­er­al sim­i­lar re­ports of miss­ing ex­hibits and seized items in the cus­tody of the TTPS have been in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the PCA, which has the sole re­mit un­der Sec­tion 48 (2) to in­ves­ti­gate crim­i­nal of­fences in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, po­lice cor­rup­tion and se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct.

“The al­le­ga­tion of miss­ing am­mu­ni­tion from the TTPS is a mat­ter of great con­cern, and the PCA will un­der­take a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter,” the PCA said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

On Sun­day, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to in­ves­ti­gate the al­leged dis­ap­pear­ance of 500 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion seized by po­lice from a li­censed firearms deal­er in cen­tral Trinidad last year.

Mooni­lal was speak­ing dur­ing the Op­po­si­tion’s me­dia con­fer­ence.

Last month, a High Court judge or­dered the po­lice to re­turn a num­ber of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion which were seized from Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man and firearms deal­er Towfeek Ali, dur­ing an al­leged au­dit. Af­ter the han­dover was com­plet­ed, Ali’s at­tor­neys wrote to the po­lice in­di­cat­ing that 500 of the 1,230 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion that was seized from their client was not re­turned.

Mooni­lal said the in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance was ques­tion­able and want­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher to have her of­fi­cers an­swer.

Mooni­lal said when the am­mu­ni­tion was tak­en as part of the po­lice’s au­dit, it was held by the po­lice “for safe­keep­ing” be­fore the court or­dered its re­turn.

“Lo and be­hold, on­ly 630 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were re­turned, leav­ing 500 miss­ing. At first, they in­di­cat­ed they could not find the rest of the bul­lets, but lat­er in­di­cat­ed they could have mis­cal­cu­lat­ed the count by 500. Does the po­lice need SEA maths class­es? How can you mis­cal­cu­late by 500? It’s not five or two or three, it’s 500 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, that can­not be found. This is a na­tion­al cri­sis and Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher needs to get crack­ing and in­ves­ti­gate this,” Mooni­lal said.

Mean­while, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney and part own­er of the Firearms Train­ing In­sti­tute Lim­it­ed, Nyree Al­fon­so, said, “The room was full of po­lice of­fi­cers who were, in fact, record­ing the pro­ceed­ings as we were. So, im­me­di­ate­ly, they knew there was an is­sue and that the rounds were not re­turned. Let’s put it that way.

“They knew they had not re­turned the num­ber of rounds that they had seized. We es­ca­lat­ed that in writ­ing im­me­di­ate­ly to the TTPS’s at­tor­neys be­cause we are in lit­i­ga­tion. We did re­ceive a re­sponse. I think the re­sponse was per­haps it a mis­count.”

She added: “Nine-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion is the most com­mon form of am­mu­ni­tion that is in cir­cu­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, both in the hands of law en­force­ment and those who are against the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. So ob­vi­ous­ly, I have a con­cern that the am­mu­ni­tion could go in­to some hands which are not hell-bent on keep­ing the law and keep­ing us safe.”

She said apart from fil­ing ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings in De­cem­ber of last year, “we would have asked for in­ter­im re­lief and the in­ter­im re­lief was in the na­ture of re­turn­ing the firearms, re­turn­ing the am­mu­ni­tion, the com­pa­ny’s com­put­ers, and the com­pa­ny’s reg­is­ters for firearms.”

“So, all of these things had to be hand­ed over. So up­on the hand­ing over of the firearms and the am­mu­ni­tion, there was a list­ing, it was an or­der of the court, which re­flect­ed what the po­lice in­di­cat­ed they had seized.”

She al­so said: “I don’t prac­tice crim­i­nal law and I will tell my col­leagues who do. I don’t wish to. But if you’re seiz­ing, the po­lice are seiz­ing some­thing, ob­vi­ous­ly, they must take a note of what they’re seiz­ing, you know, whether by tag­ging it, whether by care­ful­ly not­ing it, but there was a care­ful note on which the cur­rent claimants were asked to en­dorse and ac­cept that that is what was be­ing tak­en away from the premis­es and the se­cure premis­es of the deal­er. And these 500 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were, in fact tak­en, away for safe keep­ing by the po­lice pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“So, you re­move the am­mu­ni­tion from a safe en­vi­ron­ment and you took it in­to your cus­tody, which we say was il­le­gal, and you said it was for safe keep­ing, which we say was be­yond your pow­er to do so. In the cir­cum­stance and then you say, well, ok, maybe that’s not the amount I took. I don’t know where those are.”

She is al­so con­cerned that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing led by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, the same unit that will be in­ves­ti­gat­ing the miss­ing am­mu­ni­tion.