(Trinidad Express) Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams has said the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service is capable of conducting a criminal investigation against former CLICO executives and the related companies to which they were attached.
He recalled in a phone interview yesterday that it was the Police Service which investigated the Piarco Airport matter which was a complex financial matter no different from the collapse of insurance giant CLICO and related companies.
The investigation is being conducted by a special team of police officers, comprising members of the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau (ACIB) and the Fraud Squad.
The criminal investigation was first made public by Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard in a news statement on November 7.
Gaspard had then called on the media to refrain from publishing “anything which might jeopardise, hinder or otherwise prejudice the investigation or any possible proceedings which might result from it”.
The DPP had also expressed similar concern to Sir Anthony Colman, the lone Commissioner at the Enquiry into the collapse of CLICO and related companies and the Hindu Credit Union, that the case which the police were pursuing could be compromised by public revelations in his Commission.
But Colman has declined Gaspard’s implied request for the Enquiry to be held in private saying it was contrary to “public interest.”
The acting Commissioner told the Sunday Express the criminal probe was the responsibility of the Police Service. Williams dismissed questions on whether the local service had the internal capacity for such a probe.
He said should the TTPS require specialists in certain fields, the onus would be on the TTPS to obtain those services.
He pointed out that such outsourcing would be no different from the Attorney General hiring a Queen’s Counsel to assist in a matter.
For his part, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan has publicly committed to “spare no costs in this regard and would leave no stone unturned in the journey for justice.”
Despite the late start of police probe, given that the insurance company went belly up in January 2009, the Central Bank initiated civil proceedings in June 2011 in a bid to recoup funds from two top CL Financial executives — former Group financial head Andre Monteil and former chairman, Lawrence Duprey.
