POLITICAL LEADER of National Transformation Alliance (NTA) Gary Griffith believes the government is trying to implicate him in an plot to overthrow the goverment hatched by a cult which had control of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).
On July 3, the Prime Minister claimed the nation’s version of the CIA was being run under the influence of a religious cult which had been stockpiling guns and over 100,000 rounds of ammunition to stage a coup.
“Several family members and associates of particular persons, and of a particular church, were found to have been surreptitiously employed in this agency. Such persons belonged to a cult which was arming itself while preaching a doctrine for trained military and paramilitary personnel with a religious calling to be the most suitable to replace the country’s political leadership. They were exerting high levels of influence on the affairs of the agency to the detriment of national security.”
At a media conference on July 6, at the party's new headquarters in Mt Lambert, Griffith said believed Dr Rowley was making another attempt to “demonise” him. He said Rowley statement in Parliament on July 3 made several false claims against him regarding the issuance of Firearm User's Licences (FULs) while he served as commissioner of police between August 2018 and August 2021.
Rowley said an audit into FULs for the period 2016 to 2021 revealed Griffith handed out thousands of FULs, even when police divisional heads were against it, and there was a sharp increase in import permits granted to firearm dealers.
Among other claims he said, under Griffith’s tenure from 2018 to 2021, military-type high-powered weapons were converted to fully-automatic weapons and about 100 legal guns were used to carry out crimes.
Griffith said Rowley damaged the reputation of the country when he made announcements about cults and terrorists without producing a shred of evidence. He said it was startling that such claims were being made and no one had been arrested.
He questioned why no one had been arrested for any of those illegal activities if the allegations were true. Griffith said the claims made by Rowley could sway potential investors and tourists to visit “a terrorist state.”
“If there was a coup, you have not yet called a name which means the people are still outside. Why would anyone want to come into TT if you are now admitting that there are terrorists here, there's a coup planed, there is a plot to destabilise the country and the persons have not yet been charged? So they are walking around freely, probably still in the SSA because there could be sleeper cells there.”
Griffith questioned why Rowley allowed the SSA’s continued existence after there was proof of a cult in the form of the Jerusalem Bride Church and a planned coup when the Special Operations Response Team (SORT) was dismantled after only allegations into misdeeds were made but no one was charged.
However, in April 2021, the head of the unit, Insp Mark Hernandez, was charged with misbehaviour. He was arrested in c
