Hadeeds seek reunion with children as lawyer says ‘they are suffering’

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

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Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve will have to wait un­til at least Fri­day to see if they will be re­leased from de­ten­tion to be re­unit­ed with their three chil­dren af­ter spend­ing al­most three weeks in prison on an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. 

Ap­pel­late Judges Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er, and Joan Charles re­served their de­ci­sion in the cou­ple’s ap­peal over be­ing de­nied in­ter­im re­lease by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, af­ter hear­ing ex­ten­sive sub­mis­sions at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

The pan­el promised to give their de­ci­sion no lat­er than 8 am on Fri­day. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the cou­ple in­tends to mount a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil if they suf­fer a sec­ond de­feat in their bid for in­ter­im re­lease. 

In his sub­mis­sions, the Hadeeds’ lawyer, Dou­glas Mendes, SC, claimed that the cou­ple’s chil­dren, ages 17, 15, and 12, were se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion. 

“The chil­dren are suf­fer­ing,” Mendes said. 

Mendes took is­sue with the lack of par­tic­u­lars pro­vid­ed by the State to show that the cou­ple was in­volved in the pur­port­ed plot. 

He claimed that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der re­lied on in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by an un­named na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency and did not pro­vide de­tails that could be ob­jec­tive­ly as­sessed by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad and the Court of Ap­peal. 

“You can­not say I can­not dis­close the rea­sons, but I am still go­ing to use it against you,” Mendes said. 

“They are ask­ing you to rub­ber-stamp the min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion and aban­don the cit­i­zens of T&T,” Mendes added. 

He sug­gest­ed that even if the State was un­will­ing to dis­close al­leged ev­i­dence gath­ered dur­ing an on­go­ing po­lice probe, such could have been pro­vid­ed to the courts to make an as­sess­ment. 

“What did he (Hadeed) say or do and to whom?” Mendes said. 

Mendes al­so took is­sue with the fact that Alexan­der claimed that the Hadeeds had the fi­nan­cial re­sources to fund such a plot. 

“His wealth means noth­ing,” Mendes said. 

Mendes called on the pan­el to or­der their con­di­tion­al re­lease by plac­ing them un­der house ar­rest so they could be re­unit­ed with their chil­dren and for Hadeed to con­tin­ue his treat­ment for sev­er­al med­ical con­di­tions. 

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, British King’s Coun­sel Sir James Ead­ie claimed that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s de­ci­sion could not be fault­ed. 

“The judge’s ap­proach to the le­gal is­sues was en­tire­ly cor­rect,” Ead­ie said. 

Ead­ie stat­ed that Alexan­der was not legal­ly re­quired to dis­close the par­tic­u­lars be­fore the cou­ple chal­lenged their de­ten­tions be­fore the SoE Re­view Tri­bunal. 

Hadeed’s re­view was com­plet­ed on Mon­day, while his wife’s was heard yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

“It is not pos­si­ble to dis­close ma­te­r­i­al which is sen­si­tive,” Ead­ie said. 

While he ac­cept­ed that the tri­bunal’s rec­om­men­da­tions are not bind­ing on Alexan­der, Ead­ie sug­gest­ed that the cou­ple was free to file a case if they were suc­cess­ful be­fore the tri­bunal and Alexan­der main­tains his po­si­tion. 

He al­so claimed that Alexan­der was re­spond­ing to a cred­i­ble threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. 

“It is hard to be­lieve that an­oth­er min­is­ter would have act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly,” Ead­ie said. 

“It is the min­is­ter who is re­spon­si­ble if the plot comes to fruition,” he added. 

Ead­ie al­so ac­knowl­edged that a fi­nal ap­peal in a case over the le­gal­i­ty of an SoE in 2011 was heard by the Privy Coun­cil yes­ter­day. 

How­ev­er, he not­ed that un­til the coun­try’s high­est court de­liv­ers its judg­ment, the Court of Ap­peal’s rul­ing up­hold­ing reg­u­la­tions for that SoE, which were sim­i­lar to the reg­u­la­tions in the on­go­ing SoE, stands. 

“The whole regime, which is ma­te­ri­al­ly iden­ti­cal, has been con­sid­ered and de­ter­mined,” Ead­ie said. 

About the case

The Hadeeds and a 69-year-old rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, were de­tained late last month as po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at their homes and of­fices.

The war­rants in­di­cat­ed that they were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der based on in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders (PDOs) sub­se­quent­ly is­sued by Alexan­der in­di­cat­ed that they were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed over a plot to as­sas­si­nate gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. 

In their sub­stan­tive case, the cou­ple’s lawyers are not on­ly chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tions based on PDOs un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions (EPR) for the SoE, they al­so claimed that the move by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­tend the SoE, last month, was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as it sought to tar­get mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty, a mi­nor­i­ty eth­nic group, and Hadeed per­son­al­ly.  

They ex­ten­sive­ly quot­ed state­ments made by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, in the SoE ex­ten­sion de­bate in Par­lia­ment, in which he re­peat­ed­ly de­scribed mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty as “the one per cent” and ac­cused them of be­ing fi­nanciers of the now-Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and of steal­ing state land. 

They sug­gest­ed that Je­re­mie was re­fer­ring di­rect­ly to Hadeed as the al­le­ga­tion arose af­ter he pub­licly crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in March and af­ter the Cab­i­net sought to uni­lat­er­al­ly ter­mi­nate leas­es to State land held by his com­pa­ny in May. 

They ref­er­enced a let­ter sent to Hadeed by Je­re­mie’s of­fice in­di­cat­ing that the po­lice were in­ves­ti­gat­ing the is­sue of the grant­i­ng of the leas­es. 

They point­ed out that the cou­ple and their rel­a­tive were on­ly ar­rest­ed based on “in­tel­li­gence”, a day af­ter Hadeed threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over the ter­mi­nat­ed leas­es. 

The Hadeeds are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus, and Car­lon McLeod. 

The AG’s Of­fice is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Robert Strang, Ger­ald Ramdeen, and Dayadai Har­ri­paul.