Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Marco Vidal, he retired under a cloud of controversy after his strike team was implicated in narco plane landings. But, even though he quietly retired, this week, he's been dominating the headlines - accused, first of trying to get security videos deleted because they would implicate his nephew, alleged triple murderer Elmer Nah, and then of trying to intimidate a possible witness in his case.
Yesterday his attorney Godfrey Smith produced an audio recording of his encounter with that neighbor - which, he says, proves Vidal was neither asking for files to be erased, nor was he making any threats.
Today the Commissioner of Police agreed, but did say that he believes Vidal was out of line:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Police were looking for Mr. Vidal to question him further in respect to the video footage that we saw. The other gentlemen who were in that video footage with him were detained by the police that same day and were subsequently interviewed. The storeowner, likewise, was interviewed by the police, but let me say that there was no cooperation from the storeowner in terms of giving the police any useful information. And then rumors began to circulate that this storeowner is an essential witness in the Ramnarace brothers, Vivian Belisle triple murder. Let me dispel that right away because the truth is, those people at that store are no witness in either the Williams murder or the Ramnarace murder."
"Having listened to the audio that was released to the media by Mr. Vidal's attorney, while I do agree in principle with the attorney that from a legal standpoint there is nothing we can do. If it were that the people who live there were witness or witnesses to any case that is before the court, Mr. Vidal would have had no authority, either legal or otherwise, to go there because doing so would amount to one of three offences that could have been committed. One would be either tampering with a witness, two: perverting the course of justice, or three: attempting to suppress evidence. So those would be the three offenses that we'd be looking at."
"The fact that that they are not witness or witnesses in no active matter before the courts, then there is nothing we can do from a legal standpoint. While yes I do understand that there may be a need for Vidal to try and assist his nephew to prove his innocence, he would have no legal authority to have done so once those persons are witnesses in any active matter before the courts."
"It is not as what the public was saying, that he had gone there to threaten the people or had gone there and asked them to erase the video footage. It was not that. It was indeed a casual conversation. But again, he ran a serious risk because, let's say for example, those people had indeed given a statement to the police and were witnesses in either the Ramnarace brothers murders or the Williams murder and he had gone there to request information from them the way he did, he certainly would have committed an offence. But the fact that they are not witnesses, that helps him. And again, while he did so with a view to try and clear his nephew, that was not the right thing to do."
"So from an ethical standpoint he was wrong, but legally he did not commit any offence."
Reporter
"Wouldn't you find it odd that he reminds the lady of her murdered husband?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Yes, all of that can be taken into account. I don't understand spanish well., I try to pick up bits and pieces, but my good friend on my left, did a good job in terms of in translating the content of the audio that was in spanish and that was how I could have understood basically what transpired."
Jules Vasquez
"But you clearly see the tone - it can be interpreted and you can hear the woman's voice if you listened to the spanish, it raises like why do you want to know, or what do you want. So, you can see that it has a intimidating tone if someone out of the blue comes and bring up a murder that happened sometime ago of your loved one."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Everybody would take that as intimidating, Jules. That's the bottom line. You don't expect a person who is not a police to come and question you about video footage pertaining to any crime. It is not their place and that's the reason why I maintain the fact that he ought not to have been there."
Reporter
"Have you spoken with the store keeper since then to see if she felt intimidated by his presence and two other men's presence?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I spoke to one of them personally and in speaking to her, her thing is that we would have cooperated with the police, but after the video footage was leaked to the public, we decide not to. So that completely shut them down in terms of them cooperating with the police, because the video footage was out there and there was already all sorts of speculations."
Reporter
"Sir, was there an operation to catch Mr. Vidal if he had returned to the store. I am told he was returning when he was tipped off."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Sometimes you get information that is not really accurate from people who try to create mischief. Yes, there was some plan from what we gathered for him to return; I think around 2pm. The operation was put in place in the event that he had gone that day would have intercepted, 3pm came and he was a no-show and so the officers went to the house to retrieve the video footage and it looks like while they were there, the vehicle may have came by and saw the police there and it just drove past and that was what happened and not basically them being tipped off."
