A sharp war of words be­tween the cur­rent and for­mer heads of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has height­ened ten­sions over the per­ceived in­de­pen­dence of the coun­try’s top law en­force­ment of­fice.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day sought to set the record straight, is­su­ing a point­ed re­sponse to ac­cu­sa­tions of po­lit­i­cal align­ment.

His re­marks came a day af­ter for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia he be­lieved Gue­var­ro had be­come a “pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer” for the sit­ting ad­min­is­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in his de­fence of the now-re­moved Unit­ed States mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go.