Trinidad and Tobago is in the grip of a mafia culture and it is urgent that witness as well as jury protection be studied by a special task force and legislation presented to Parliament.
By Peter BalroopIf the State drags its heels, there is a risk that the conviction rate for homicides is going to get even more dismal in T&T.
This is the recommendation of leading T&T criminologist Prof Ramesh Deosaran, an Independent Senator
It comes in the wake of the forces of law and order having to be called into the Remand Yard and Golden Grove prison last weekend, to quell a near riot as prison authorities conducted cell searches.
And his recommendation comes with the Lower House having heard at Friday’s sitting that Deosaran, head of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice had collected $1.6 million in consultancy fees from the Ministry of National Security since January 2002.
Prisons Commissioner John Rougier had condemned the media for accepting cellphone calls from Golden Grove prisoners, giving details of their alleged brutalisation at the hands of masked soldiers and police officers on Saturday evening.
Unauthorised communication with prisoners was against the law, Rougier said—a position supported by Minister in the Ministry of National Security, Fitzgerald Hinds.
But Deosaran said the first question to ask was how did the prisoners get access to cellphones.
“I believe it is difficult to prohibit enterprising journalists from getting information about prison conditions from prisoners themselves,” Deosaran said.
But prisoners having cellphones at their disposal was a definite security risk, on which the authorities were quite right to stamp down.
He added: “I do not think that prisoners should have access to cellphones until we are sure that crime is not being perpetuated from inside the prison.
“If prisoners want to get messages out then there should be a proper information system to deal with that.”
As part of Deosaran’s consultancy fee, Hinds told the Lower House on Friday, in response to a question filed for oral answer from Pointe-a-Pierre MP Gillian Lucky, a member of the Congress of the People (COP), Deosaran did a study on how recidivism in the prisons can be combatted.
In recent days, the issue of State witnesses declining to give evidence, and changing their sworn testimony, has sprung up with the witnesses themselves expressing fear for their lives and those of their families as a reasons for their reluctance to support the cause of justice.
Asked to comment, Deosaran said: “Witness protection is an issue of no return. It is like a Pandora’s Box.
“When protecting witnesses we have a sad record from Clint Huggins up.”
Huggins was the State’s main witness against Dole Chadee and his accomplices for the murder of the Baboolal family but was found murdered in 1996 after leaving his safe house.
Levi Morris, another State witness in the Dole Chadee case, said Deosaran, is one of the few success stories, having contributed to a historic set of executions of Chadee and his gang.
“Levi Morris has a diploma in business and is safely tucked away in Europe,” Deosaran disclosed.
Today, however, the situation is much more difficult for while protecting the witnesses, the State also has to guard their wives and relatives, particularly against electronic infiltration, since they were also in jeopardy.
“It is not one person who has to be taken care of.
“In the Mafia culture of today his immediate family is just as at risk as the witness himself.
“That whole issue should be linked to our trial by jury system.”
“Because jurors are also vulnerable to bribery, threats and other inducements.
“We need a special task force to sit down and deal with witness, jury and other security matters — not ad hoc legislation,” Deosaran said.
It was an issue raised at a recent Caricom task force on security meeting since the problem was now rampant from Guyana to Jamaica.
“However it’s more horrendous in T&T in relation to crime and kidnapping.
“That is why we should be rather expeditious in dealing with it or our conviction rate will get even more dismal, especially for homicides,” Deosaran said.
Just back from a conference in Los Angeles, which was attended by criminologists from around the world, Deosaran said witness and jury protection, as well as security of the administration of justice were matters high on the agenda.
