Dindial: Charge Hadeeds and Sabga or release them

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is call­ing on the State to ei­ther for­mal­ly charge busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve Hadeed and rel­a­tive Star Sab­ga over al­le­ga­tions of a con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate se­nior mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, or re­lease them.

His com­ments come as the three re­main de­tained un­der Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), amid re­ports they are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in con­nec­tion with an al­leged plot to kill se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day again de­clined to com­ment pub­licly on the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, asked by Guardian Me­dia to re­spond di­rect­ly to the con­tin­ued de­ten­tion of the Hadeeds and Sab­ga, Din­di­al, who is now head of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), ar­gued that if in­ves­ti­ga­tors pos­sess suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence, the mat­ter should pro­ceed be­fore the courts.

“Let me say this plain­ly. If the State be­lieves Do­minic Hadeed, Genevieve Hadeed and Star Sab­ga con­spired to as­sas­si­nate se­nior mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, then charge them. Ar­rest them. Put ev­i­dence be­fore a court. That is how democ­ra­cy works,” Din­di­al said.

He con­tend­ed that the con­tin­ued use of Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) sug­gest­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors had not yet gath­ered suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to lay crim­i­nal charges.

“What we have in­stead un­der this cur­rent State of Emer­gency is this: pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders be­ing used be­cause there is no ev­i­dence, thus far, to charge.

“If the ev­i­dence was re­al, cred­i­ble and pros­e­cutable, you would not be talk­ing about de­ten­tion. You would be talk­ing about war­rants, ar­rests and a file at the DPP’s of­fice. You would not need an SoE to hold peo­ple. You would need a court­room.”

Din­di­al fur­ther al­leged that emer­gency pow­ers were be­ing used to sup­press dis­sent rather than ad­dress na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threats.

“But in­stead, we are see­ing the heavy hand of the SoE used against cit­i­zens who the State can­not charge, but wants to si­lence. That is not na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. That is po­lit­i­cal man­age­ment,” he said.

“This sends a dan­ger­ous mes­sage to every busi­ness­man, every cit­i­zen who dis­agrees with the Gov­ern­ment: Speak up, and you risk de­ten­tion with­out tri­al. That is the text­book de­f­i­n­i­tion of us­ing emer­gency pow­ers to sup­press dis­sent, not sup­press crime.”

He urged the au­thor­i­ties to ei­ther present ev­i­dence be­fore the courts or re­lease the de­tainees.

“So, I ask the State: If it is re­al, prove it in court. If it is not, re­lease them. Be­cause right now, this looks less like a con­spir­a­cy and more like a farce. And T&T can­not af­ford to crim­i­nalise dis­agree­ment just be­cause we are un­der an SoE.”

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les adopt­ed a more cau­tious po­si­tion, say­ing the Op­po­si­tion would await the out­come of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore com­ment­ing fur­ther.

“It will not be pru­dent to com­ment at this time,” Gon­za­les said.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day al­so re­served her com­ments on the de­vel­op­ment when con­tact­ed.

But PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Saniv Bood­hu ques­tioned whether the re­cent de­ten­tions could give rise to per­cep­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

In a lengthy Face­book post yes­ter­day, Bood­hu com­pared the cur­rent case with pre­vi­ous Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders is­sued dur­ing the SoE, in­clud­ing the de­ten­tion of Dan­ny Guer­ra in 2025.

He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s pub­lic state­ments and sub­se­quent ar­rests had fu­elled spec­u­la­tion over the in­de­pen­dence of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Bood­hu al­so ref­er­enced com­ments made in Par­lia­ment by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ear­li­er this month con­cern­ing mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty and ques­tioned the se­quence of events that fol­lowed.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that per­cep­tion is dis­tinct from fact, he main­tained the State had once again re­lied on PDOs rather than crim­i­nal charges.

“The fact is that this mat­ter is an­oth­er case of the State or­der­ing the po­lice to de­tain peo­ple with­out charge,” he wrote.

Bood­hu fur­ther ar­gued that re­peat­ed use of de­ten­tion or­ders with­out charges risked un­der­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the in­de­pen­dence of the TTPS, say­ing the great­est ca­su­al­ty of such per­cep­tions would be po­lice of­fi­cers who con­tin­ue to serve pro­fes­sion­al­ly.