Bermuda’s Premier Ewart Brown is almost alone among his peers in requiring a personal bodyguard.

This week Public Safety Minister David Burch said a threat assessment had been carried out which required a new higher level of security for Dr. Brown.

Government House, which has responsibility for internal and external security, would not comment on the matter yesterday.

But it is understood Government House is puzzled about who had carried out any threat assessment.

Premier Brown was assigned a Police officer earlier this month to guard him at a celebrity golf tournament in the Bahamas.

Inquiries yesterday revealed of the British territories in the Caribbean region only the Turks and Caicos has a Government leader with personal bodyguards.

A spokeswoman for the Turks and Caicos Islands Government confirmed Premier Michael Misick has two security staff, who also travel overseas with him, although his predecessor had none. The spokeswoman was not able to say what had lead to the change.

Mr. Misick, whose centre-left pro-independence party took power in Turks and Caicos four years ago is a friend of the Progressive Labour Party and gave the keynote address to the PLP’s banquet in 2003.

The Cayman Islands, with a population of 57,800, has not so far seen the need to attach full-time security to Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts.

Asked if Mr. Tibbetts took a security officer abroad Caymans chief information officer Patricia Ebanks said: “No, not as far as I know.”

But she pointed out that security was stepped up from time to time.

“There was a period last year when we did have some concern about the security of Government Minister and they did have some extra security assigned to them.”

The British Virgin Islands, which has a population of nearly 22,000 does not have full-time security for its leader.

Anguilla’s Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming who presides over a population of approximately 13,500 does not have a bodyguard while the leader of the 6,000-plus Montserrat is not thought to have one either.

Earlier this week Opposition leader Wayne Furbert accused the Premier of creating an entourage by hiring extra security but Sen. Burch said Dr. Brown had “at no time personally requested the type, nature, or composition of a security detail”. Sen. Burch said the increase in security had come out of a routine review.

Brown threat assessment