FORMER Strategic Services Agency (SSA) director retired Major Roger Best, who has been denounced as an enemy of the State by the Prime Minister, has been a soldier for most of his life.
At 56, he faces one of his toughest battles yet, not in the trenches, but with the very country he served with an unblemished record for the last three and a half decades.
As head of the SSA he ran an agency charged with gathering intelligence by intercepting communication and information through a network of spies to help police and other law enforcement agencies combat and prevent serious and organised crime and dismantle current and emerging threats to the country.
The agency is authorised to intercept phone calls, WhatsApp, e-mails and other modes of communication after obtaining court orders under the Interception of Communication Act or it can covertly gather information for intelligence. It was first established in 1995 primarily “to guide the formulation and implementation of national policies on illicit trafficking of dangerous drugs and related criminal activities.
The role and function was expanded in 2016, under the PNM, “to act as an office for centralising information that could facilitate the detection and prevention of serious crime, for co-ordinating operations for the suppression of serious crime and for co-operating with the services or the corresponding services of other countries.”
Five months ago he was removed from it, on the basis of as-yet-unproven allegations that he was part of a cult seeking to overthrow the government. Now, in his first full-length interview, Best has identified elements in the SSA itself, reportedly aligned to key politicians, as being responsible for his tumultuous fall from grace.
Best was sent on immediate administrative leave on March 2. He and 27 other SSA operatives were summarily dismissed between March and May, on the basis of the contents of a confidential Special Branch report which was reviewed by the National Security Council (NSC), which is chaired by the Prime Minister.
All the terminated employees intend to take legal action over what they deem unjust dismissals, and believe taxpayers will end up paying them millions.
[caption id="attachment_1100262" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Chairman of the National Security Council and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. -[/caption]
“I felt like I went to sleep on one planet and woke up on another,” Best said, referring to the startling claims Dr Rowley made in Parliament on July 3, detailing why the government believed it had to act with haste to replace Best and purge the SSA of purportedly rogue elements.
Best said the event which followed his suspension has left him "disappointed and hurt."
Three weeks after Best was sent on leave, Rowley at a public event claimed state agencies have become one with criminal elements even as he says government has been grappling with the state’s contribution to the crime problem.
He expanded on July 3, in Parliament, stating an audit by the new director of the SSA retired
