Within 24 hours after receiving information that the life of the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was possibly under threat, the Special Branch Unit was able to process the information and determine it to be fake. While such swift work is usually commended, the officers from the unit are now being investigated as one of them leaked the details of their investigation, causing widespread panic after it was shared on social media yesterday.
Speaking at an impromptu media briefing yesterday afternoon, acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams confirmed that the circulated memo from within the Special Branch Unit, which is tasked with high profile duties, including the protection of the Prime Minister, was genuine. However, he assured that after probing the allegations made in the document they were found to be false.
Williams said neither he nor the Prime Minister were told of the alleged plot within the 24 hours that the officers were investigating the claims. The Special Branch correspondence claimed that members of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen were transporting guns throughout the country and were planning to attack the PM’s private residence in Phillipine and Siparia and free 11 men who have been charged with the murder of Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal and those charged in the Vindra Naipaul-Coolman murder trial.
Williams said the memorandum circulating via social media was generated from the Special Branch and signed by an assigned superintendent and circulated on Tuesday around 6.15 pm to all field sections in Special Branch. He said the rumour which generated the memo was not supported by facts when the officers did their investigations and the Special Branch would not have communicated anything to either him or the PM until the information was verified.
He added: “It is nothing unique, it is the day-to-day functioning of the Special Branch. “What is unique in this particular instance is that a communique like that, which is limited to the unit, would have reached out into the public domain. That breach of confidentiality would have been done by a member of the Special Branch.
“Up to the point in time there is no support to the content of that rumour. I cannot speak about the future. I can speak to the point in time. I want to give you the assurance that this is an internal communiqué which reached the Special Branch that can be called in layman’s terms a rumour.”
Second bogus plot
Williams said an investigation had been launched into the leak and Hackett had been given an August 3 deadline to report to him on the matter. He said appropriate action would be taken against the officer who breached the unit’s confidentiality but did not specify what that would entail.
Asked about possible punishment for the officer, Williams said before the completion of the investigation it would not be “smart of him” to comment, adding that all offences and punishment are in the law books. He also said it was too soon to speak about transfering the officer/s responsible for the leak.
In 2011, the PM told the nation, via a media conference, that her life was in danger following a plot to destabilise the country. At least 13 men, including two police officers, were detained and later released without charge in the matter.
Police said that the men had pictures of then attorney general Anand Ramlogan with an “X” on his face and had also seized the book, “The Art of War”, from one of the men. At the time of their arrest, the PM had announced a limited state of emergency, which was then upgraded to a full state of emergency which ended on December 5.