(Trinidad Express) Every person who was involved in the murder of Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal will be caught even though it may take a long time, National Security Minister Gary Griffith has said.
Seetahal was shot dead on May 4 while driving her Volkswagen SUV along Hamilton Holder Street in Woodbrook. She had just left the Ma Pau Casino nearby, when gunmen opened fire, shooting her five times. No one has been arrested for her murder to date.
Speaking to the media during the Senate’s tea break yesterday, Griffith said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was working on the case.
“The Dana Seetahal murder, again, I want to emphasise the fact that we have the DEA, they are working on this matter so if at any time anyone would feel that it is a cold case, it is not. The DEA, they don’t operate on cold cases, they are still heavily involved in it. I am pretty confident, we have been looking at the information that has been coming forward.
“I refuse to make any statement that can affect the investigation or to put anyone on an alert as to what is taking place but I wish to state categorically that this is not in any way a cold case, that the law enforcement agencies, they are working hand in hand with the DEA,” said Griffith.
“The DEA have acted on many cases similar to this for years and sometimes these cases take a year or two years but when it is they intend to crack it, it’s not just a matter of the person who operated the trigger but everyone from captain to cook will be taken down,” he added.
With respect to the murders of German couple Hubertus and Birgid Keil, Griffith said he was confident law enforcement would handle this case with the same professionalism that led to the capture of the country’s most wanted, Azmon Alexander.
Griffith said there has been a 30 per centre reduction in major crimes but homicides remain a challenge because of gang-related activities.
He said the murder of the Germans “hit us hard” and has pegged this country back but law enforcement will pursue the matter.
The minister also disclosed that by the end of the year into early next year February 2015, illegal immigrants in this country will be allowed to come forward to be regularised.
He said there has been a pattern with respect to illegal immigrants and crime but stressed that in the regularsation process once an immigrant is found not to be a national security threat or a drain on this country’s resources, he can be regularised.
“It was between 2004 and 2006 the problem with illegal immigrants started picking up and that coincided with the same time that there started to be an escalation in gang-related activity.
“That was the same time they started to have a rise in murders, this had nothing to do with which government was in power, it had to do with the issue so I’m looking at the issue with illegal immigrants and I’m not saying illegal immigrants have been the cause…but intelligence have confirmed that there is a direct relationship with the increase in gang-related activity to the mass flow of illegal immigrants coming into Trinidad and Tobago at that specific time,” said Griffith.
He said after this window period, any illegal person who is caught by immigration will be deported.