There is no ‘CID-SSU feud’

The “feud” between the Special Services Unit (SSU) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Police Force is a “figment of Senator [St. Clair] Leacock’s imagination” says Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.{{more}}

“There is no feud. That is a matter of which I am concerned with as Minister of National Security. There is absolutely no feud,” Gonsalves told Parliament on Monday, August 31.

He was responding to a question by the opposition senator, regarding claims that SSU officers removed their colleague Constable Rohan McDowall from CID custody and threatened the regular force with retaliatory action.

The alleged incident is said to have occurred after Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Colin Williams ordered that McDowall be charged with the murder of his SSU colleague Kingsley John, who was shot dead inside the Biabou Police Station.

But head of the CID, Assistant Superintendent of Police Willisford Caesar and his SSU counterpart Ronald Hadaway last week denied the incident and said there was no conflict between the two branches of the constabulary.

“This whole question is based on a tissue of lies,” Gonsalves told Parliament, noting that Members of Parliament could not ask questions based on newspaper reports and unofficial publications.

The police last Tuesday, August 24, charged McDowall with murder, two weeks after the DPP had instructed them to do so.

“The Prime Minister does not get involved in the issue of charging or not charging anybody. I stay completely out of that.… The question that it is claimed that there was some unauthorized removal, that is not true and I did not advise anybody to take back anybody anywhere,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said Leacock believes that because he was a major in the Cadet Corps “he should be Commissioner of Police or Minister of National Security or direct who should be removed as Commissioner.”

Gonsalves’ salvo was cut short when Speaker of the House of Assembly Hendrick Alexander said “Thank you, Honourable Prime Minister.” (KXC)