Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says all airports and sea ports have been placed on high alert as the manhunt for escaped prisoners Hassan Atwell and Christopher “Monster” Selby continues.
In a media release last evening, Persad-Bissessar gave the assurance that the Government was in “full control” of the security situation in T&T following Friday’s “disorder.”
Atwell, 41, and Selby, 30, remain at large after staging a midday jailbreak from the Port-of-Spain prison.
They, together with Allan ‘Scanny’ Martin, 42, one of the men on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Xtra Foods CEO Vindra Naipaul-Coolman, shot their way out of the prison.
During their escape they shot at police officers outside the prison, among them PC Sherman Maynard.
Maynard was shot in the chest and later died in hospital. Martin was also killed in an exchange of gunfire with the police at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, where he was cornered in a guard booth after he sought refuge when they crashed their getaway vehicle just outside the facility.
Persad-Bissessar said yesterday that in the last 24 hours following the incident, agencies of the Ministry of National Security, in conjunction with the National Operations Centre (NOC), had conducted “a series of road blocks, stop and search exercises and surgical strikes based on intelligence and information gathered in relation to (Friday’s) events.”
She said people were detained and interviewed and the protective services were “confident of an early breakthrough. Those charged can expect to face the full weight of the law.”
Persad-Bissessar said she was overseeing national security operations and seeing “this process through.”
She said that all efforts were being made to recapture the two fugitives still at large.
“The airports and sea ports have been placed on high alert in the event persons of interest attempt to leave this jurisdiction, and members of the public are asked to treat those on the run as armed and very dangerous,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar also commended the T&T Police Service for their “diligent work in the ongoing investigation of the murder of Dana Seetahal, SC.”
She added that she had every confidence in the ability of the country’s national security agencies “to bring this and other ongoing investigations to a resolution.”
Anyone with information on the fugitives Atwell and Selby can call 555, 999, or 800-TIPS. (RR)