PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Feb 15, CMC – An opposition legislator has suggested that members of the security forces are involved in murders in Trinidad and Tobago.

Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge, who is also a criminal defence attorney, told the Senate on Tuesday that there is only group of people which can carry out such killings without being caught.

“Who among us could carry out murders with such skill and perfection? Who among us has the luxury of training and perfecting their art interrupted without having to look over their shoulders or having to worry about a national security helicopter passing over?

“Is it time Madam President for law enforcement to look inwards, or is it that these killings are being carried out by returning ISIS fighters (from Syria). These are the things we need to know. If we know the causes then we know how we arrive at the solution,” Sturge told legislators.

More than 70 people have been murdered here since the start of the year and Sturge said it is obvious that “many of the drug-related killings may very well be carried out by hired guns”.

He said these hired guns “may well have been…members of the armed forces,” adding that this could be among the reasons why the crime detection is so low here

He posed several questions to National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, saying “isn’t it obvious that something is amiss, that something isn’t adding up.

“All this technology and we have the lowest detection rates anywhere. We pay the most money on national security and we get the least results. That can’t continue.

“So I ask is the Minister of National Security knows what is the reason for the Muslim versus Rasta City war, or the reason for the Muslim versus unruly ISIS. Where are all the guns coming from?

“We were given the impression that legislation expanding the remit of the SSA (Special Security Agency) was needed as a matter of urgency that it would go a long way in crime detection and we have in the last nine months since the passage since the exact opposite.”

Sturge said that urgent and important legislation has not yet been proclaimed and that could assist in the fight against crime.