@Mark454 posted:I would like to ask you one more question to better understand this sentence: "they are suspected of being aided" can also refer to a past event, as in "they suspect that they have been aided/ were aided", right?
If the suspicion is present but the aiding took place in the past, you should use a perfect form of the nonfinite verb:
- The criminal is suspected of having been aided by other individuals.
- They suspect the criminal of having been aided by other individuals / They suspect the criminal to have been aided by other individuals.
If both the suspicion and the aiding took place in the past, we'd have:
- The criminal was suspected of being aided by other individuals.
- They suspected the criminal of being aided by other individuals / They suspected the criminal to be aided by other individuals.
If the suspicion lies in the past and the aiding took place further back in the past, we'd have:
- The criminal was suspected of having been aided by other individuals.
- They suspected the criminal of having been aided by other individuals / They suspected the criminal to have been aided by other individuals.