Around the Region : Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Bahamas

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One Caribbean Nation





Weekend Regional News

PORT OF SPAIN – The T&T Police Service has announced that in the next few days, it will ramp up its surveillance and monitoring of citizens to ensure that public health regulations are not being breached.

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith said after a meeting with National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds on Wednesday, several decisions were taken to intensify the response to lawbreakers.

The Operational Command Centre and Commissioner’s Command Centre will be both used for their surveillance capabilities.

“We will be monitoring all areas with the 1,000-plus cameras across the country to ascertain if it is we are seeing persons congregating in a mass, if we are seeing vehicles parked in a certain place so we will be intensifying our operational procedure as it pertains to ensuring that persons adhere to the regulations,” Griffith said at a media conference at the Police Administration Building in Port-of-Spain yesterday.

From the surveillance exercises, Hinds, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh and the National Security Council will all receive daily briefings.

Griffith said those reports will include every ticket, arrest and every time a crowd is dispersed for breaching the public health regulations.
The daily reports will also give insight into the functions and efficiency of each of the nine police divisions.
(Guardian Media)

KINGSTON – Thursday’s release of three high-profile members of the notorious Coke family and four others on murder and gang-related charges served as a blow to lawenforcement and justice officials who have pitched the crushing of mafias as a key goal to collar crime.

Cheers, tears, and shouts of “Freedom!” greeted the seven who were conditionally freed because the prosecution did not have the smoking gun to press conviction as the police had difficulties locating the two main witnesses.

The seven – Andrew Coke, Lanchester Coke, Michael Coke, David Biggs, Delmarco Cephas, Wayne Page, and Iesha Jones – were transported home from the courthouse after Justice Leighton Pusey upheld a nolle prosequi that had been entered by the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to suspend the matter.

The group was charged with the murder of alleged gangster Patrick Davis in 2018 and also for being a member of a criminal organisation.

The Cokes are related to convicted drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, who is in a United States prison.

Andrew and Lanchester are Dudus’ brothers and Michael is his son.
(The Gleaner)



NASSAU – The Ministry of Works spearheaded the demolition of 45 “incomplete and unoccupied structures” in The Farm shanty town in Abaco yesterday, a move that human rights activists quickly condemned.

“The government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas remains firm in its resolve to ensure that the health hazards and hazardous conditions that unregulated communities foster are dealt with decisively and effectively,” the ministry said in a statement.

Human Rights Bahamas, whose legal director Fred Smith is contesting the government’s shanty town actions in court, said it was “unfortunate that the government would choose to create yet another humanitarian crisis on the island of Abaco”.

The organisation added: “Hundreds of people already lost homes in the tragedy of Hurricane Dorian, and even more in the illegal demolitions by the government that followed.

(The Tribune)

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