PORT-OF-SPAIN – The Police Service Commission (PSC) yesterday questioned the whereabouts of the Trinidad and Tobago police commissioner Dawyne Gibbs, after media reports indicated that he had been detained for “some hours” in Brazil. “It has become a matter of grave concern for the Police Service Commission to learn through the media that our Commissioner of Police . . . was actually detained and held for some hours in Brazil, upon entering that country in an attempt to attend a conference,” the PSC said in a three–page statement that also questioned the whereabouts of the other Canadian national, Jack Ewatski, who is the deputy Police Commissioner. Embarrassment The PSC said that it has not heard “nothing from Commissioner Gibbs in relation to this incident, which by media reports, appears to be a tremendous embarrassment not only to the Police Service of Trinidad and Tobago and by extension the Police Service Commission, but also to the entire nation of Trinidad and Tobago . . . .” On Monday, Communications Minister Suruj Rambachan told reporters that Gibbs was not among the national security officials that had advised the government on the present state of emergency. Rambachan said that Gibbs had returned to his home in Canada and was due back here on Tuesday. But the Trinidad Express in an article yesterday said that Gibbs had travelled to Brazil last Friday to be an observer at a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). But he was held up at the airport there since he did not have a visa to enter the country. No visa “I wasn’t informed that I needed a visa to travel to Brazil. I used my Canadian passport and when I came off the plane and headed to the terminal, I was asked
for my visa which I did not have,” Gibbs was quoted as saying.“I remained seated at the airport in the general area for three to four hours as people on both ends were working to sort it out. I appreciate everything everyone has done in such short space of time, given the fact it was Saturday and offices would have been closed.”
The PSC said it was also taking issue with the procedure and protocol adopted by Gibbs with relation to his absence from the country. “We are also now informed that Deputy Commissioner of Police Jack Ewatski is also out of the country and we again express our concern about the protocol and procedure in his departure from the country and possible absence from duty. Neither of these two gentlemen have sought to notify us properly of their absences,” the PSC said. It said also that both senior police officers “have been conspicuously absent from the forefront of the current arrangements in the country, particularly as it relates to the current state of emergency and the accompanying policing arrangements”. “The Police Service Commission has been provided with no forwarding address for these two gentlemen, nor any overseas contact telephone numbers for them. “The Police Service Commission has thus far not heard from these two gentlemen as to the plans and objectives of the Police Service during this period of a state of emergency, and considers this to be the most significant national security initiative in this country in years and alarmingly, we have heard nothing from Commissioner Gibbs nor Deputy Commission Ewatski as it relates to their objectives and goals for the Police Service during this period.” The PSC said that it was giving both men “the fullest opportunity to be heard and shall be writing these two gentlemen to ask them to explain and account for their absences . . . .” (CMC)
