Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, SC, on May 18, ordered the release of four people detained by police including the now-sacked director of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) Major Roger Best.
Sources said officers of the Professional Standards Bureau met with Gaspard who reviewed their file and gave certain instructions. Police now have to complete further investigations before consulting with the DPP on whether they have sufficient evidence to support criminal charges against the four.
Best was arrested on May 16 and was fired by the acting President Nigel de Freitas on May 18, while still in police custody.
According to a release from the Ministry of National Security, the Cabinet met on May 18 and decided to advise the acting President to terminate Best with immediate effect.
Also detained were pastor Ian Brown, a former special reserve officer assigned to the SSA, former security supervisor Portell Griffith and Sgt Sherwin Waldron, formerly assigned to the Special Operations Response Team.
In early March, the Prime Minister, as head of the National Security Council, recalled retired Brig Gen Anthony Phillips-Spencer, TT’s ambassador to Washington DC, to replace Best.
Dr Rowley announced Best’s suspension shortly after returning from a trip to Washington, where he met with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other top US intelligence officials. Rowley cited an impending threat to national security as the reason for the decision.
In mid-March, Brown was dismissed as a special reserve police officer by Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher.
Thursday’s arrests followed a two-and-a-half-month-long investigation into a wide range of allegations against SSA agents, a series of interviews, including one with former commissioner of police Gary Griffith.
Simultaneous searches were carried out at the homes of Best and the others shortly after. Warrants, signed off by a High Court master, allowed investigators to search for electronic devices for interrogation by the police service’s cyber and social media unit of any communications data and stored data.
Best faces a possible charge of possession of an automatic rifle – an MP5K Heckler and Koch automatic submachine gun, in contravention of the Firearm Act and possibly misbehaviour in public office for the transferring of two Sig Sauer MPX guns, two Sig Sauer 516 rifles with optic and an assortment of ammunition.
Sources told Newsday on May 17, that Best and the others were questioned on the transfer of the weapons from the police to the SSA.
On May 18, more interviews were done. Sources say investigators have in their arsenal message books on the assignment of the weapons.
Newsday has also seen a document dated April 29, 2021, addressed to Best from the now-defunct Special Operations Response Team of the police on the “loan of TTPS firearms and ammunition” for two Sig Sauer MPX firearms and two Sig Sauer 516 rifles, along with three magazines and 90 rounds of ammunition each.
Permission was given fo
