The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has bro­ken its si­lence, de­fend­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der against on­go­ing al­le­ga­tions that his meet­ing with al­leged gang leader Ra­jaee Ali ear­li­er this year was un­sanc­tioned.

This comes hours af­ter a copy of a Re­quest for Per­mis­sion let­ter, signed by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) North West and Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Richard Smith, sur­faced on­line, ef­fec­tive­ly de­bunk­ing on­go­ing claims of a se­cret meet­ing with the al­leged gang­ster.

Con­firm­ing the let­ter was le­git­i­mate, Smith told Guardian Me­dia that Alexan­der “had not done any­thing wrong or il­le­gal”.

In fact, he stressed, “The min­is­ter was on­ly act­ing on in­struc­tions, and none of his ac­tions can be in­ter­pret­ed as se­cret or in any way jeop­ar­dised the op­er­a­tions of the TTPS.”

Smith, who now heads the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, con­firmed Alexan­der had re­ceived per­mis­sion to ac­com­pa­ny him to vis­it Ali, who had been in­car­cer­at­ed at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) at the time.

That for­mal per­mis­sion had been sought and ob­tained from Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 17, which had been ad­dressed to Mar­tin, Smith in­di­cat­ed he had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from a re­li­able in­for­mant that Ali want­ed to meet with him.

Smith wrote, “As a re­sult, I am seek­ing your per­mis­sion to meet with the de­tained Ra­jaee Ali at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty. I am al­so re­quest­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der ac­com­pa­ny me at this meet­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed Alexan­der, who had been re­called from va­ca­tion leave, had been on ac­tive du­ty at the time, work­ing with­in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit, which was head­ed by Smith.

Alexan­der’s ac­tions at the time have now been called in­to ques­tion by at­tor­ney Krys­tal Primus, who rep­re­sents act­ing Pris­ons Su­per­in­ten­dent Garth Gua­da, who is cur­rent­ly in­car­cer­at­ed at the Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas.

Alexan­der re­signed from the TTPS and suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the Tu­na­puna seat in the gen­er­al elec­tion on a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress tick­et back in April.

Gua­da, who re­mains de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) signed by Alexan­der, is con­tend­ing that the min­is­ter’s vis­it was se­cret and im­prop­er, and should be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Primus has ar­gued that the meet­ing be­tween Alexan­der and Ali may have in­volved dis­cus­sions of pre-elec­tion sup­port and promis­es of gov­ern­ment con­tracts–and that Alexan­der’s con­tin­ued si­lence on­ly served to deep­en pub­lic sus­pi­cion.

A se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial claimed Gua­da’s dis­clo­sure “of this meet­ing had done ex­act­ly what he ac­cused the min­is­ter of, which is re­veal­ing con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion and com­pro­mis­ing on­go­ing op­er­a­tions by the TTPS”.

In fact, the se­nior of­fi­cial said the meet­ing, which had been arranged by the then-pris­ons com­mis­sion­er, took place in Gua­da’s of­fice at the MSP, so it had not been a se­cret, as Gua­da would have been aware of it.

Al­though he shied away from re­spond­ing ex­cept to say At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie would is­sue a state­ment on the mat­ter, Alexan­der threat­ened to sue, say­ing at­tor­neys have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion be­fore re­leas­ing it in­to the pub­lic do­main.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she has full con­fi­dence in Alexan­der.

“Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter? I have full con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty. I have seen let­ters, and I sup­pose you all will see them in due course, pre­pare, he will give his ex­pla­na­tion, but in face of the doc­u­ments that have come be­fore my eyes, I have full con­fi­dence in the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s yes­ter­day.