POLICE COMMISSIONER Francis Forbes said yesterday there was no basis for concerns expressed by Edward Seaga, the JLP leader, that special police squads were being organised to target opposition members during the upcoming general election.
Describing Mr. Seaga's sources as providing "intentional misinformation", he said that nearly 100 people, including Mr. Seaga, were interviewed and statements collected as part of intensive investigations and that the findings refuted Mr. Seaga's claims.
"I gave the assignment to Assistant Commissioner (Donald) Walcott Brown (now retired), with a mandate to complete as quickly as possible," Commissioner Forbes told a press conference at his office yesterday. Stating that he had received the full report late last week, he went on: "At the end of the process, there was no evidence produced to give any credibility to any of the allegations."
The Commissioner said he had requested that Mr. Seaga "in his own way, send a message to the public that he continues to be committed to working with the police as we're also committed to working in a professional manner." Also, he had requested that Mr. Seaga communicate with him prior to going public on such sensitive issues so that they could investigate "to ensure that there is some value to the report and that it's not just something frivolous or misleading bent on creating problems."
The allegations made earlier this year by Mr. Seaga were that 41 members of the Police Force had been politically selected by a Senior Superintendent of Police to target Jamaica Labour Party supporters in the elections; that potential recruits for the Force were being interviewed and selected by a retired JDF officer and PNP supporter.
Results of the investigations released by the Commissioner showed that the criteria for selection for trainees was based on professionalism and not politics, that the Senior Superintendent named was not involved in the selection process; that a tactical response team to respond to large-scale armed criminal and terrorist activities, made up of police and military personnel was now operational with the capacity to respond at short notice and was not politically motivated.
After responding to Mr. Seaga's allegations point by point, based on retired ACP Brown's investigations, Commissioner Forbes said:
"I wrote to Mr. Seaga, explaining it to him and pointing out to him that some amount of damage had been done, and people who had volunteered to risk their lives on these teams and in the interest of country felt that the political direction in which they had been pointed did severe damage to them and put their families at risk," the Commissioner said.
"I've asked Mr. Seaga to reconsider in the future. I know that in his position he gets a lot of information but many of them are not going to be truthful."
He said that Mr. Seaga, like most leaders in this country, had to rely very frequently on information fed from people who were on the ground in many places.
"Sometimes one can be misled because the people who you rely on, themselves have been misled," he said. "I don't know how many levels of misinformation led to this, but certainly the investigations have shown that there's no foundation to the allegations."
