The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is still waiting for the file on the drugs and ammunition seizure at the Fyzabad Police Station, PCA director Gillian Lucky said yesterday.
Lucky said as part of their probe into the matter, she had requested all the information and statements complied by the police thus far to be sent to the authority. She said she received correspondence last week from head of the Police Service’s Professional Standard Bureau Peter Reyes, who then gave her the name and contact number of the investigating officer. “The officer was then formerly contacted by the PCA and we were told that in early May the file would be completed,” Lucky said in a telephone interview.
In February this year, South Western Division officers executed a search warrant at the Fyzabad Police Station. They discovered a quantity of marijuana, cocaine and several rounds of ammunition of various calibre hidden in the ceiling above the male bathroom and inside a filing cabinet in the dormitory. This was not the first time that illegal contraband had been seized at a station.
In August 2009, police carried out separate raids at St Joseph Police Station, where they seized four unregistered firearms and a quantity of narcotics in the office of a senior officer. Among the firearms recovered were a Beretta pistol and a shotgun, which were reportedly hidden in the ceiling of that office. Weeks later, in September 2009, officers seized two shotguns, an undisclosed amount of ammunition and an undisclosed amount of marijuana.
As a result of the seizures, then acting Police Commissioner James Philbert ordered the transfer of 38 officers from the station to other stations, but there were no charges laid.