ACTING Commissioner of Police James Philbert says he is concerned about the safety of State witness Jarvis Mark, after his home and car were targeted by armed men on Monday night.

Philbert said a full-scale investigation was launched to determine if the shooters were police officers.

’Somebody’s life is being threatened and that’s certainly a cause for concern. We are going to investigate that. We are not going to leave it idle. We are going to investigate it,’ he told reporters outside the Port of Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Mark, 26, is the main witness in a matter where a police officer is charged with attempting to rent his firearm to a civilian. His information led officers to arrest constable Curt Teesdale on July 3 along Harris Promenade, San Fernando. Jarvis was allegedly in the process of renting the gun.

Yesterday, an inspector was assigned to investigate the case. Officers from the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT) also spent the day at Mark’s Fyzabad home.

Philbert said he was not fully aware of what had been offered to Mark by the Justice Protection Programme. He said whatever was offered, it was Mark’s choice to decide whether or not he would accept it.

’There are special people who deal with that. Whatever he was offered, I don’t know. Whatever he refused, I don’t know. But in the meantime, the best thing is to have him in a place where he is secure, but it also depends on if he is willing to accept that,’ Philbert said.

Mark said he was given two offers to be kept at safe house in South and also one in North Trinidad, but he refused, saying he saw it as being unsafe. Last month he also asked that he be sent to the United States, along with his family, for protection.

In response to the question as to why Mark was not sent to the United States, Philbert said, ’That is something he can ask for, but we don’t control other jurisdictions’ policy. For instance, somebody may say they want to go to Russia, but we don’t know if Russia will accept a State witness from Trinidad.

’We can only do as best as we can. There are certain resources that are available for us to use and we have been using it. The programme, as far as I know, has been a successful programme, but it all depends on the individual and how they respond.’

Philbert also said they were probing the recent strip search of students at the St Joseph College in St Joseph, but refused to say if the search was illegal. He said the ’justification of the search’ and the method in which it was carried out would determine if it was legal or not.

-with reporting by Dave Persad