HADEED PROBE INTENSIFIES

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) yes­ter­day de­tained a 69-year-old busi­ness­woman from West­moor­ings in the on­go­ing case in­volv­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve.

In a re­lease late last night, the TTPS said the woman was as­sist­ing them in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and no charges had been laid.

“The TTPS re­it­er­ates that be­ing tak­en in­to cus­tody for the pur­pose of as­sist­ing with en­quiries is a stan­dard in­ves­tiga­tive pro­ce­dure and does not con­sti­tute a find­ing of wrong­do­ing or ad­verse in­fer­ence. The TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that all in­ves­tiga­tive steps are con­duct­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly, im­par­tial­ly, and with full re­spect for the le­gal and rep­u­ta­tion­al rights of all in­di­vid­u­als in­volved,” the TTPS said, adding no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion could be dis­closed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the woman is a rel­a­tive of the Hadeeds.

But the si­lence sur­round­ing the ar­rest of the Hadeeds con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, as top of­fi­cials close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mained mum on the mat­ter, even as no charges were laid against the cou­ple.

Re­peat­ed calls to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and his trust­ed deputies went unan­swered, while mes­sages and calls to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge al­so went unan­swered.

Busi­ness as­so­ciates and friends of the cou­ple al­so re­mained qui­et as they sought to avoid pub­lic spec­u­la­tion, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith agreed that while the pub­lic had a right to know, it was on a “need to know ba­sis” on­ly.

“Right now, they (pub­lic) do not need to know any­thing else,”

Urg­ing the pub­lic to re­main pa­tient and let the po­lice do their job, Grif­fith ex­plained that of­ten­times when per­sons of pub­lic in­ter­est are ar­rest­ed, it was on­ly af­ter charges are laid that the po­lice re­lease a pub­lic state­ment.

He said the Hadeeds’ at­tor­neys would be the ones to en­sure the rights of nat­ur­al jus­tice and due process were sat­is­fied.

He cau­tioned, “In a mat­ter as sen­si­tive as this, it is the right of the law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, not to say too much be­cause it can very well af­fect the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

He added, “I would humbly ask that we all need to be calm. Al­low the process to con­tin­ue, let it take its course and be­fore we jump to con­clu­sions and come to spec­u­la­tion, which is what is hap­pen­ing...in a mat­ter of time, the po­lice will even­tu­al­ly state the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

He de­fend­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) as he said, “The po­lice are do­ing ex­act­ly what is re­quired at this time. This is sim­i­lar to when per­sons are un­der a PDO, where they are held and not charged, and if there is not enough ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate a charge, those in­di­vid­u­als have a right to take le­gal ac­tion against the State.

“So the po­lice must be very care­ful of what they say, as this can es­ca­late the dam­ages that the tax­pay­ers will have to pay, so I think the po­lice are do­ing an ex­cel­lent job in not say­ing too much un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete.”

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah ad­vised the pub­lic that the de­ten­tion of any in­di­vid­ual dur­ing a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be viewed through two equal­ly im­por­tant lens­es - du­ty of the state to in­ves­ti­gate se­ri­ous of­fences thor­ough­ly and the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of every in­di­vid­ual to due process, dig­ni­ty and the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence.

“It is there­fore im­por­tant that pub­lic com­men­tary re­mains fo­cused on prin­ci­ples rather than spec­u­la­tion re­gard­ing any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” Heer­ah said.

Re­spond­ing to the ques­tion of just how much should the pub­lic be told and when, Heer­ah said, “In­ves­ti­ga­tors must strike a care­ful bal­ance be­tween op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness and pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

He ex­plained that dur­ing the ear­ly stages of a sen­si­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion, with­hold­ing cer­tain in­for­ma­tion may be nec­es­sary to pre­serve ev­i­dence, pro­tect wit­ness­es, pre­vent col­lu­sion among sus­pects, or avoid com­pro­mis­ing in­ves­tiga­tive strate­gies.

How­ev­er, he in­di­cat­ed that as cir­cum­stances per­mit, “the pub­lic should re­ceive time­ly fac­tu­al up­dates that re­as­sure cit­i­zens that law­ful pro­ce­dures are be­ing fol­lowed.”

Heer­ah jus­ti­fied the re­fusal by law en­force­ment to dis­close the lo­ca­tion of the Hadeeds up to yes­ter­day.

“There are cir­cum­stances where in­ves­ti­ga­tors may tem­porar­i­ly lim­it pub­lic dis­clo­sure re­gard­ing the lo­ca­tion of de­tainees for le­git­i­mate op­er­a­tional or se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons. This should nev­er trans­late in­to se­cret or un­law­ful de­ten­tion,” he said.

“The ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal au­thor­i­ties, le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives where ap­plic­a­ble, and fam­i­ly mem­bers should be af­ford­ed ac­cess in ac­cor­dance with the law and es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.”

But he ac­knowl­edged, “The pub­lic should be as­sured that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed law­ful­ly, pro­fes­sion­al­ly and with­in the lim­its pre­scribed by the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws of T&T.”