Attorney: Appeal Court only reviewed whether Hadeeds should stay in detention during their PDO challenge

At­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali says the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion to or­der the re­lease of busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve did not de­ter­mine whether the al­le­ga­tions against them were valid, but in­stead ad­dressed whether they should re­main in cus­tody as their le­gal chal­lenge pro­ceeds.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Ali ex­plained the le­gal is­sues sur­round­ing the case, af­ter the Court of Ap­peal or­dered their re­lease and the State sub­se­quent­ly se­cured a stay pend­ing an ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil.

The Hadeeds were due to be re­leased on Thurs­day af­ter the Ap­peal Court over­turned an ear­li­er High Court de­ci­sion and or­dered that they be placed un­der house ar­rest while their con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge pro­ceeds. How­ev­er, be­fore they could be re­leased from prison, the State se­cured a stay of the re­lease or­der, pend­ing an ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil, leav­ing the cou­ple be­hind bars.

Ali out­lined the time­line lead­ing to the mat­ter, ex­plain­ing that af­ter their ar­rest on June 24, the Hadeeds were ini­tial­ly held for 48 hours be­fore Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der is­sued Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) al­low­ing au­thor­i­ties to con­tin­ue de­tain­ing them un­der the State of Emer­gency.

He said the PDOs are based on in­tel­li­gence al­leg­ing that the cou­ple and an­oth­er rel­a­tive were in­volved in a con­spir­a­cy that posed a threat to pub­lic and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. He stressed that those al­le­ga­tions re­main to be de­ter­mined by the courts.

He stressed that the Ap­peal Court’s rul­ing was pro­ce­dur­al rather than a de­ter­mi­na­tion of the al­le­ga­tions.

“The Court of Ap­peal did not rule that they are free, mean­ing that they are free of all these al­le­ga­tions,” Ali said.

He said the court con­sid­ered whether the Hadeeds should re­main in cus­tody while the sub­stan­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge is heard, not whether they were in­no­cent or guilty of the al­le­ga­tions against them.

Ali said the Ap­peal Court al­so recog­nised the min­is­ter’s le­gal au­thor­i­ty to is­sue PDOs.

“What the court has done has not ren­dered the ac­tions of the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty un­law­ful,” he said.

In­stead, he ex­plained that the ques­tion of whether there is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy the de­ten­tion or­ders re­mains a sub­stan­tive is­sue to be de­ter­mined by the High Court.

Ali al­so ad­dressed the al­le­ga­tions un­der­pin­ning the PDOs. He said the or­ders al­lege there was a con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment, but ar­gued that the Court of Ap­peal con­sid­ered that the PDOs did not con­tain suf­fi­cient par­tic­u­lars to jus­ti­fy keep­ing the Hadeeds in de­ten­tion with­out con­di­tions while the sub­stan­tive case pro­ceeds.

Ac­cord­ing to Ali, the de­ten­tion or­ders do not ex­plain the ev­i­dence link­ing the Hadeeds to the al­leged con­spir­a­cy, iden­ti­fy any agree­ment to car­ry out the al­leged killings or out­line what steps were al­leged­ly tak­en to­wards ex­e­cut­ing the plan.

He ex­plained that a con­spir­a­cy al­le­ga­tion re­quires more than an al­leged con­ver­sa­tion, say­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors would ul­ti­mate­ly need to es­tab­lish an agree­ment and ac­tions tak­en in fur­ther­ance of the al­leged of­fence. Ali added that while there has been pub­lic dis­cus­sion about in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Hadeeds de­ny hav­ing such con­ver­sa­tions and that the State had not pub­licly dis­closed the source of its in­tel­li­gence or ex­plained how the al­leged in­for­ma­tion sup­ports the con­spir­a­cy al­le­ga­tions.

Ad­dress­ing com­ments that the case high­light­ed un­equal treat­ment be­fore the law, Ali re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that race, eth­nic­i­ty or so­cial stand­ing should in­flu­ence ju­di­cial de­ci­sions.

“The Hadeeds ought not to be treat­ed in any spe­cial way, dif­fer­ent from the man who lives in Beetham, Mor­vant, Care­nage or any oth­er part of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Look­ing ahead, Ali said the next stage is ex­pect­ed to be an emer­gency hear­ing be­fore the Privy Coun­cil. He said seek­ing the ap­peal is with­in the State’s le­gal rights and not­ed that had the Ap­peal Court ruled against the Hadeeds, they too could have sought re­lief be­fore the Privy Coun­cil.

Ali said the Privy Coun­cil will de­cide whether the Hadeeds should re­main in cus­tody pend­ing the sub­stan­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge, while the un­der­ly­ing al­le­ga­tions re­lat­ing to con­spir­a­cy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty will con­tin­ue to be de­ter­mined sep­a­rate­ly by the courts.

He stressed that the is­sue cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts con­cerns the cou­ple’s de­ten­tion pend­ing the hear­ing of the sub­stan­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al claim, rather than the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the al­le­ga­tions them­selves.