Trinidad

Opposition Leader Dr. Keith Rowley Monday claimed that criminals were enjoying a free reign as the number of people killed in Trinidad and Tobago so far this year reached 175.

The comparable figure for last year was 165. Over the weekend, at least five people, including a 19-year-old woman who was shot at nine times as she slept with her boyfriend in the volatile Laventille area along the east west corridor, were murdered here.

“As I speak to you now, the state of affairs in Trinidad and Tobago is that the required and necessary information gathering systems to get information on the criminal have been destroyed by this government...and they have replaced them with nothing,” Rowley told a news conference, an apparent reference to the Kamla Persad Bissessar’s government decision to do away with the Special Anti-Crime Unit (SAUTT) and revamp the intelligence units.

“The criminals now know that and they know they could operate with impunity because there is nobody looking, there is nobody watching, there is no overhead surveillance and there is very little surveillance on the ground,” he told reporters. Rowley dismissed Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs recent statement of a “spike” in murders, telling reporters the situation has gone beyond a mere spike.