A group of men lim­ing at a Diego Mar­tin bar came to the aid of a pa­tron who was at­tacked by two ban­dits on Sun­day af­ter­noon.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused crit­ics of the Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-crime cam­paign of at­tempt­ing to in­flame racial ten­sions and un­der­mine Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pro­tec­tive ser­vices, as the ad­min­is­tra­tion faces mount­ing crit­i­cism over its use of in­tel­li­gence, pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders and as­sis­tance from Unit­ed States se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in a high-pro­file al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Po­lice said res­i­dents re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots along Palm Road around 7.50 pm. Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and found the body of Da­le­on La­fon in the yard of a near­by home with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds.

At­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali yes­ter­day urged the Gov­ern­ment to clear the air over the au­then­tic­i­ty of the au­dio record­ing in­volv­ing Genevieve Hadeed and her aunt Star Sab­ga, which has be­come the cen­tre of an es­ca­lat­ing pub­lic de­bate on so­cial me­dia.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings yes­ter­day warned that the leaked Hadeed-Sab­ga au­dio record­ing rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about cit­i­zens’ pri­va­cy rights, say­ing every per­son should be con­cerned if pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions can no longer re­main pri­vate.

Af­ter be­ing de­tained a month ago on Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs), two men ac­cused of fly­ing drones in­to pris­ons were charged on Sat­ur­day and are to ap­pear in court vir­tu­al­ly to­day.

A ma­jor coun­ter­traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in To­ba­go has shocked the is­land and left Sig­nal Hill res­i­dents dis­turbed by the se­ri­ous­ness of the al­le­ga­tions.

Res­i­dents in dif­fer­ent neigh­bour­hoods in Mor­vant say the preva­lence of vi­o­lent crime, cou­pled with fears of an im­pend­ing gang war, has placed them on alert.

Just days af­ter two Venezue­lan mi­grants, in­clud­ing a six-year-old girl, drowned when an over­crowd­ed pirogue cap­sized in the Colum­bus Chan­nel, an­oth­er il­le­gal sea voy­age has end­ed in tragedy.

Two Trinidad and To­ba­go mar­itime ex­perts have been ap­point­ed to the Com­mis­sion of In­quiry (COI) es­tab­lished by Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali to in­ves­ti­gate the cap­siz­ing and sink­ing of the MV Bari­ma on Ju­ly 18 while trav­el­ling from George­town to Port Kai­tu­ma, in what has be­come the coun­try’s dead­liest mar­itime dis­as­ter. Au­thor­i­ties have since re­cov­ered dozens of bod­ies while res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts con­tin­ue.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu will meet for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) hostage Wen­dell Ever­s­ley to­day as he be­gins his an­nu­al walk from Ari­ma to the Red House, Port-of-Spain, in re­mem­brance of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

The Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) has not yet re­ceived a for­mal re­quest from Cari­com to pro­vide an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion on the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.