Trinidad Express
Hinds: Everyone should be required to submit DNA
-Juhel Browne
Sunday, February 11th 2007 Minister in the Ministry of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds says that everyone should be required to submit a Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) sample since anyone has the potential to commit a crime.
Hinds made the assertion as he wound up the debate on the DNA Bill, 2006, late Friday night.
Earlier in the sitting, Congress of the People political leader Winston Dookeran, the St Augustine MP, was one of the Opposition members who said all members of the protective services and members of Parliament should submit DNA samples as a requirement of employment.
"We agree with the principle that all police officers, all soldiers, all coast guard officers, all teachers, all Parliamentarians, all judges, all public servants, all masons, we feel every single individual in Trinidad and Tobago should be profiled because we are all possessed of the evil potential to commit crime," Hinds said.
He said, however, that there are some significant impediments to what he called this laudable objective.
"We can't put in the legislation for everyone to be so sampled because our capacity at the Forensic Science Centre just would not accommodate it," Hinds said.
To support his point that everyone should submit DNA samples, he made reference to a crime that occurred abroad.
"I saw on the TV a few nights ago, a general in the US Army, well-respected, well-known, he took his wife to some island on a vacation and killed the woman and after extensive investigations, they discovered it was him. We all have the capacity to do that," he said.
As for the police, Hinds said that there are some labour issues involved in obtaining DNA samples from all police officers, so only those who go on crime scenes and new recruits will be sampled to eliminate them from suspicion for the time being.
