PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – The Trinidad and Tobago government yesterday said it has never been in possession of any intercepted communication by the controversial Security Intelligence Agency (SIA).
In a brief statement, the Office of the Prime Minister said that it had become aware of media reports “concerning the status of private communications which were intercepted by the SIA last month.
“The Office of the Prime Minister wishes to state that it is not, nor has it ever been, in possession of any intercepted communication by the SIA and all allegations otherwise are false, misleading and erroneous.”
Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar told Parliament last month President George Maxwell Richards was among a list of prominent people, including politicians, trade unionists, journalists and even sports personalities whose phones had been illegally tapped by the SIA formed in 2005 by the then Patrick Manning administration.
She said that the information about the operations of the SIA came following a police raid late in September and that the government had earlier thought it had dealt with the issue of wire tapping when it disbanded the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT) soon after it won the May 24 general election.
The government has successfully tabled the Interception of Communication Bill 2010 that it said would “provide that lawful interception of communication can only be done by means of a judicial warrant, applied for in writing by an authorised officer and issued by a Judge after he has taken a number of factors into consideration.
On Monday, Justice Minister Herbery Volney was quoted in the local media as saying that the files of the SIA have been destroyed by two Israeli men, adding that all that is left are “empty folders”.
The Sunday Express newspaper had reported Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, as head of the National Security Council, had possession of the files.
Volney said the files were destroyed by the Israeli men and only former prime minister Patrick Manning could clear the air on the entire controversy.
“There was a group of men from Israel who were here and they were thrashing all the files so that what we came across were empty folders, that is what alerted the Prime Minister to bring the Commissioner of Police in to prevent it from continuing. So I think that most of it has been thrashed already. All the secrets of the last Government have been thrashed,” Volney said.
In the statement from the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday, the government said that “regarding the SIA and the recent investigations into this unit, the Office of the Prime Minister wishes to point out that the Commissioner of Police had -and continues to have -sole and exclusive jurisdiction and control over the SIA and all matters concerning investigations into its recent operations fall exclusively under the ambit and purview of the Commissioner of Police”. (CMC)
