PORT OF SPAIN – The head of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association (PSSWA), Inspector Michael Seales, Monday called on the authorities to return him to active duty within the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) after a magistrate court threw out a charge of sedition against him.
Seales, who had been on TT$75 000 bail, was charged with making a seditious statement on June 24, 2015, when he appeared on a television programme here.
He had claimed then there was an alleged plot by the People’s Partnership government, headed by Kamla Persad Bissessar, to frustrate the TTPS to react in such a way that there would be a need for a state of emergency, thereby stalling the September 7, general election of that year.
Seales made the comment during the heightened wage negotiations and was suspended the following day by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams. In a release then, Williams said he made the decision “as a result of an allegation of serious misconduct”.
Speaking to reporters following the decision by the court to discontinue the matter, Seales, a 28-year veteran of the TTPS, said he was “extremely happy and I want to give thanks to God”.
“What I want is to put the Acting Commissioner on notice immediately is that he needs to reinstate me immediately and more importantly to pay my outstanding sums of money.
“My family would have suffered over the last two years, so it is time for him to make that right. That is the position I am taking and I will spare no effort in trying to have that resolved as quickly as possible,” he added. (CMC)
