Hadeeds face delay in Privy Council hearing matter

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve have suf­fered an­oth­er dis­ap­point­ment in their bid to se­cure their in­ter­im re­lease from de­ten­tion over an al­leged plot to kill Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Ear­li­er to­day, lawyers for the cou­ple and the State re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion that a fi­nal ap­peal, over a de­ci­sion by a three-mem­ber pan­el of the Court of Ap­peal to or­der their re­lease on house ar­rest, could not be fa­cil­i­tat­ed be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based ap­pel­late court's va­ca­tion pe­ri­od be­gins next Fri­day.

The court re­port­ed­ly in­di­cat­ed that the ear­li­est the ap­peal could take place would be in Oc­to­ber mean­ing that the cou­ple would re­main de­tained at least up un­til the State of Emer­gency ends in mid-Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, it sug­gest­ed that the cou­ple could ap­ply to lift the stay that was grant­ed over the in­ter­im re­lief pend­ing the fi­nal ap­peal, part­ly on the ba­sis that it (the ap­peal) would be heard ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

"The Court does not wish to deal with the ap­peal in a rush in the last few days of the term, and that it ap­pears to use that the im­me­di­ate is­sue of the Re­spon­dents' con­tin­ued de­ten­tion could be ad­dressed more con­ve­nient­ly by means of an ap­pli­ca­tion by the Re­spon­dents to lift the stay," it said.

Short­ly af­ter the de­vel­op­ment, the cou­ple re­ceived pos­i­tive news that their sub­stan­tive case, al­leg­ing that they are be­ing tar­get­ed by the State based on their eth­nic­i­ty and a le­gal chal­lenge over a move to ter­mi­nate their leas­es for State land, will be heard ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

On Ju­ly 8, High Court Judge Vigel Paul re­fused to ex­pe­dite their case which stemmed from them be­ing de­tained since last month over an al­leged plot to kill key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

When the cou­ple's ap­peal came up for hear­ing be­fore Ap­pel­late Judges Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well and Joan Charles, a short while ago, at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen, who is rep­re­sent­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, did not ob­ject to the ap­peal be­ing heard ur­gent­ly.

Ramdeen said that while his clients were ini­tial­ly op­posed to the case be­ing treat­ed as ur­gent, they were now will­ing to fa­cil­i­tate such based on fresh med­ical ev­i­dence over Hadeed's de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health and the cou­ple's failed bids to se­cure their in­ter­im re­lease.

He was care­ful to note that the State still main­tained that Jus­tice Paul was cor­rect to ini­tial­ly refuse the re­quest as the med­ical ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed on be­half of the cou­ple at that time was not suf­fi­cient.

Ramdeen's po­si­tion was praised by the ap­peal pan­el, which high­light­ed the need for their le­gal chal­lenge to pro­ceed ur­gent­ly.

"That is an ex­cel­lent ap­proach to the mat­ter," Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said.

"We agree the need for ex­pe­di­tion and not for time to be wast­ed be­fore the Court of Ap­peal," she said.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, both judges raised con­cerns over Hadeed's cur­rent med­ical con­di­tion.

Se­nior Coun­sel Faris Al-Rawi stat­ed that while his client was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined by his spe­cial­ist doc­tors while un­der de­ten­tion over the past month, he still has not re­ceived nec­es­sary treat­ment and phys­io­ther­a­py to ad­dress sev­er­al med­ical con­di­tions he suf­fers with.

"His con­di­tion con­tin­ues to sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­te­ri­o­rate and can im­pact his mo­bil­i­ty and over­all health," Al-Rawi said.

Ramdeen de­nied sug­ges­tions that he and State of­fi­cials were seek­ing to block Hadeed from re­ceiv­ing med­ical care.

"I am not heredin any hap­pi­ness by see­ing the con­di­tion of Mr and Mrs Hadeed," Ramdeen said.

He claimed that the Hadeeds' lawyers had failed to pro­pose a treat­ment plan and sched­ule which could be fa­cil­i­tat­ed.

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­mind­ed the par­ties that Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh and two col­leagues had or­dered the State to fa­cil­i­tate med­ical treat­ment for Hadeed when they grant­ed a stay of an or­der is­sued by three col­leagues di­rect­ing that they be placed on house ar­rest, last Fri­day.

"We urge you to work to­geth­er to get it done...If it is not it would be con­tempt and could en­dan­ger their lives," Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said.

In or­der­ing the sub­stan­tive case be­fore Jus­tice Paul be ex­pe­dit­ed, the ap­peal pan­el not­ed that he (Jus­tice Paul) would have to de­cide whether he would con­tin­ue to pre­side over the case or would trans­fer it to a col­league, who has been as­signed to work through the court's an­nu­al va­ca­tion pe­ri­od which be­gins next month.

The case is sched­uled to come up for hear­ing to­mor­row be­fore Jus­tice Paul.

The cou­ple and a 70-year-old rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, were ar­rest­ed late last month based on pur­port­ed in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

All three were is­sued Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

The cou­ple's bid for in­ter­im re­lease was ini­tial­ly blocked by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad.

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged the con­di­tions in prison the cou­ple have had to and con­tin­ue to en­dure, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said that they could be com­pen­sat­ed through dam­ages if they are even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in their le­gal chal­lenge.

"While the court ap­pre­ci­ates the dis­tress from de­ten­tion, it does hold the view that there may be greater harm if they are re­leased and the in­tel­li­gence up­on which the po­lice and min­is­ter act­ed proves to be true," Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last week, Ap­pel­late Judges Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er, and Joan Charles found that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad was wrong.

In their judge­ment, the ap­peal pan­el said that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad could not be fault­ed for giv­ing def­er­ence to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns raised by the State.

How­ev­er, they found that he failed to prop­er­ly con­sid­er that Alexan­der pro­vid­ed in­suf­fi­cient grounds to war­rant their de­ten­tion un­der the PDOs, which would re­main in place while the State of Emer­gency (SoE) re­mains in place un­til mid-Sep­tem­ber.

"A con­spir­a­cy to kill se­nior mem­bers of gov­ern­ment re­quires par­tic­u­lars of that con­spir­a­cy in or­der to jus­ti­fy pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion. It is not suf­fi­cient to in­di­cate that the first ap­pel­lant (Hadeed) has the means to car­ry out such a con­spir­a­cy if the con­spir­a­cy it­self has not been iden­ti­fied," the judges said.

"Hav­ing the means to car­ry out a con­spir­a­cy or plan is not suf­fi­cient grounds for a pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­der," they added.

The pan­el al­so took is­sue with the fact that Alexan­der re­lied on in­tel­li­gence re­ports in the PDOs.

"Vague as­ser­tions there­fore of in­tel­li­gence with­out ex­plain­ing how that in­tel­li­gence re­flect­ed the on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy and the de­vel­op­ment of plans, ar­guably did not sat­is­fy the statu­to­ry pre­con­di­tion for the ex­er­cise of the pow­er to is­sue the PDOs," they said.

"Suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was re­quired to demon­strate com­pli­ance with the statu­to­ry pre­con­di­tions for the ex­er­cise of PDOs and to per­mit de­tained per­sons to at least know the rea­son for that ex­treme and dra­con­ian ex­er­cise of Ex­ec­u­tive pow­er," they added.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al then ob­tained a stay of the judg­ment pend­ing a fi­nal ap­peal to the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil from an­oth­er Ap­peal Court pan­el led by Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh.

CJ Boodoos­ingh and Jus­tices Mark Mo­hammed and Ricky Rahim ruled that the bal­ance of jus­tice re­quired the stay pend­ing the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of an ap­peal be­fore the coun­try's high­est ap­pel­late court.

Like Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, CJ Boodoos­ingh stat­ed that the po­ten­tial risk of the cou­ple con­tin­u­ing an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials if they are re­leased un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the po­lice was greater than con­cerns raised over Hadeed's de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health since be­ing de­tained over the past three weeks.

He sug­gest­ed that the med­ical con­cerns could be as­suaged by State of­fi­cials fa­cil­i­tat­ing ac­cess to his spe­cial­ist doc­tors while he re­mains un­der de­ten­tion.

The TTPS and the AG's Of­fice have filed the ap­peal al­leg­ing the first pan­el made three ma­jor er­rors in weigh­ing in on the Hadeeds' ap­peal.

In the sub­stan­tive case, the cou­ple's lawyers have not on­ly chal­lenged 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" pur­port­ed­ly gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) through in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, a day af­ter Hadeed threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over the ter­mi­nat­ed leas­es.

"The is­suance of de­ten­tion or­ders by the Min­is­ter there­fore ap­pear to have been part of a pre­de­ter­mined plan by the Gov­ern­ment against the First Claimant on the ba­sis of his ad­verse com­men­tary about the Gov­ern­ment, and/or his race, and/or his per­ceived po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, and/or his per­ceived sup­port for the op­po­si­tion and/or his per­ceived wrong­do­ing in re­spect of hav­ing ob­tained leas­es for State lands," they said.

"Quite apart from the fore­go­ing, the Claimants' fi­nan­cial means and in­flu­ence were used as a ba­sis for de­ten­tion in the ab­sence of any past al­le­ga­tion of in­volve­ment in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty," they added.

Through the law­suit, the Hadeeds are seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions in­clud­ing over the le­gal­i­ty of the SoE ex­ten­sion and their de­ten­tions un­der PDOs.

They are al­so claim­ing that over a dozen of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached by the al­leged ac­tions of the TTPS and the Gov­ern­ment and are seek­ing fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion.

The Hadeeds are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Chase Pe­gus, and Car­lon Mc Leod.

The AG's Of­fice and TTPS are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by British King's Coun­sel Sir James Ead­ie, Dayadai Har­ri­paul, and ASP Ram­dath Phillip.