Mark Bas­sant

The head of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team(SORT) In­spec­tor Mark Her­nan­dez was de­tained for ques­tion­ing in­to the deaths of mur­der sus­pects Joel Bal­con and An­drew "So­lo" Mor­ris ear­ly this morn­ing.

Sources close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion told Guardian Me­dia Her­nan­dez was not ar­rest­ed but was asked to come in and be in­ter­viewed in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in which sev­er­al SORT of­fi­cers have al­ready been ques­tioned and lat­er re­leased.

Her­nan­dez was first tak­en to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion and lat­er to the Pin­to Po­lice Sta­tion where he was be­ing ques­tioned in the pres­ence of his at­tor­ney by of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau(PSB). Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Her­nan­dez is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by crim­i­nal at­tor­ney John Heath.

Close to 20 of­fi­cers from the unit which com­pris­es both po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel have been in­ter­viewed over the last week and lat­er re­leased.

Bal­con and Mor­ris were prime sus­pects in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Ari­ma court clerk An­drea Bharatt on Jan­u­ary 29.

With­in hours of Bharatt’s dis­ap­pear­ance, Mor­ris and Bal­con were picked up by a team of SORT and An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris sub­se­quent­ly died at the hos­pi­tal on Feb­ru­ary 1, while Bal­con suc­cumbed to in­juries he al­leged­ly sus­tained while in po­lice cus­tody on Feb­ru­ary 8.

In­spec­tor Her­nan­dez has been short-list­ed for one of three posts of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice(DCP) and his nom­i­na­tion is yet to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment.

Se­nior po­lice sources say apart from the charge of mur­der the of­fi­cers could face oth­er charges, which in­clude as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm, mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice.