Al-Rawi distances Hadeeds, Star Sabga from any plot to target PM, Cabinet members

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve, and her 69-year-old aunt Star Sab­ga have stat­ed that they are not wag­ing a war against the Gov­ern­ment and are on­ly seek­ing to re­store their rep­u­ta­tions. 

The trio’s lawyer Faris Al-Rawi made the state­ment yes­ter­day evening, as he host­ed a me­dia con­fer­ence to pro­vide an up­date on their on­go­ing le­gal pro­ceed­ings over their de­ten­tions for a pur­port­ed plot to as­sas­si­nate key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. 

Al-Rawi said: “Our clients are not in a war with the Gov­ern­ment. They just want to clear their good names.

“For the record, our clients com­plete­ly de­ny any form of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. They have nev­er been be­fore the courts of T&T for any­thing re­lat­ed to crim­i­nal mat­ters let alone some­thing as se­ri­ous as this.”

Al-Rawi said Sab­ga was re­leased from the Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca around 11.30 pm on Mon­day night and placed un­der house ar­rest at her West­moor­ings apart­ment by po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch. 

He not­ed that while State at­tor­neys ob­tained a six-hour stay of Jus­tice Vigel Paul’s de­ci­sion to or­der her con­di­tion­al re­lease in or­der to file an ap­peal, they did not seek a stay when the ap­peal came up for case man­age­ment be­fore Ap­pel­late Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

The ap­peal is ex­pect­ed to be heard by an Ap­peal Court pan­el on Sep­tem­ber 14.

Asked about Sab­ga’s cur­rent con­di­tion af­ter over a month in prison, Al-Rawi said: “She is very dis­tressed and in need of med­ical at­ten­tion. How­ev­er, she does not want to be viewed as some­body who is the ex­cep­tion to the rule. She con­sid­ers her­self as a reg­u­lar per­son in T&T.” 

He com­mend­ed the po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in Sab­ga’s tran­si­tion from prison to home de­ten­tion for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism. 

Dur­ing the me­dia con­fer­ence, Al-Rawi firm­ly de­nied im­pu­ta­tions that he or oth­er mem­bers of the trio’s le­gal team were re­spon­si­ble for leak­ing a record­ing of an in­ter­cept­ed call be­tween Sab­ga and Genevieve, which formed the ba­sis of their de­ten­tion on Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs). 

The record­ings were shared on the web­site of a week­ly news­pa­per last week and were sub­se­quent­ly wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia, lead­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to launch a probe. 

He not­ed that last Fri­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter dis­closed 13 short clips, to­talling a lit­tle over two min­utes, and he and his col­leagues re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of the unedit­ed record­ing, which they are still yet to re­ceive. 

“We could not be the source of the dis­clo­sure be­cause we do not in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tions,” Al-Rawi said. 

Al-Rawi de­clined to say whether he and his col­leagues be­lieved that the record­ing was pro­cured us­ing a war­rant un­der the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act. 

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, law en­force­ment of­fi­cials can in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­out a war­rant in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or to pre­vent a crime from be­ing com­mit­ted.

How­ev­er, a war­rant is re­quired if in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions are to be used in crim­i­nal cas­es. 

Al-Rawi not­ed that state­ments linked to Sab­ga in the record­ing were wrong­ly at­trib­uted to Hadeed and his wife in their PDOs, rais­ing ques­tions over the ba­sis for their de­ten­tions, which would be con­sid­ered by the courts in their sub­stan­tive case that comes up for hear­ing to­mor­row.

“That war­rants an ex­pla­na­tion,” Al-Rawi said. 

How­ev­er, he de­clined to com­ment on deroga­to­ry racial slurs that were pur­port­ed­ly used by Sab­ga in the con­ver­sa­tion with Genevieve. 

“I pre­fer not to de­scend in­to that be­cause there is a whole bas­ket of is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with that. I have my own views, but I am not per­mit­ted as an at­tor­ney to ex­press any­thing be­sides the law,” Al-Rawi said. 

“I have looked at the com­ments on­line, and there are dif­fer­ent views. Democ­ra­cy is alive and well in our coun­try when you see the views on­line,” he added. 

Al-Rawi said that the nu­mer­ous al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties with the trio’s de­ten­tions raised ques­tions over PDOs cur­rent­ly in place for hun­dreds of cit­i­zens un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE). 

“Are there more peo­ple in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances...Does this af­fect any­one else?” Al-Rawi asked. 

He called on the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty (LAAA) and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) to con­sid­er whether they could as­sist such per­sons. 

He not­ed that per­sons on PDOs may not be able to ac­cess le­gal aid based on cur­rent rules of en­gage­ment. 

“It is time to look at what the new nor­mal is,” Al-Rawi said. 

The trio was ar­rest­ed in late June based on pur­port­ed in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA). 

The Hadeeds’ bid for in­ter­im re­lease was ini­tial­ly blocked by Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad be­fore be­ing up­held by a pan­el of the Court of Ap­peal, which took is­sue with the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion put for­ward by Alexan­der for their de­ten­tion on PDOs.  

An­oth­er Court of Ap­peal pan­el led by Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh stayed their col­leagues’ find­ings pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil. 

The SoE Re­view Tri­bunal then rec­om­mend­ed the trio’s re­lease from de­ten­tion. 

The PDOs against the Hadeeds were lift­ed late last week af­ter the Privy Coun­cil in­di­cat­ed that it could on­ly hear the State’s ap­peal in Oc­to­ber. The stay was main­ly based on the ap­peal be­ing heard by the coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court with­in two weeks. 

Alexan­der has chal­lenged the tri­bunal’s move to is­sue the non-bind­ing rec­om­men­da­tions with­out giv­ing him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to present his views. 

The Hadeeds have filed a sub­stan­tive case chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tion and al­leg­ing that they are be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment based on their eth­nic­i­ty and a le­gal chal­lenge over a move to ter­mi­nate their leas­es for State land. 

The Hadeeds and Sab­ga are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Dhe­men­dra Pun­wasee, Jerome Ra­j­coomar, Chase Pe­gus, and Car­lon Mc Leod. 

 Alexan­der, the AG’s Of­fice and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by British King’s Coun­sel Sir James Ead­ie, Ger­ald Ramdeen, Dayadai Har­ri­paul and ASP Ram­dath Phillip. 

TIME­LINE

June 26: Star Sab­ga, 69, was de­tained as po­lice ex­pand­ed a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve Hadeed.

On the same day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der signed a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) against her, al­leg­ing in­tel­li­gence linked her to an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and that her de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty.

Ju­ly 2: Sab­ga’s PDO was pub­lished as Le­gal No­tice No 495 of 2026, out­lin­ing al­le­ga­tions that she ad­vo­cat­ed vi­o­lence against Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, had ac­cess to per­sons ca­pa­ble of fa­cil­i­tat­ing vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, and formed part of a wider plan to desta­bilise the Gov­ern­ment.

Ju­ly 24: Sab­ga sought in­ter­im re­lease be­fore Jus­tice Vigel Paul. The State re­quest­ed time to re­spond to her ev­i­dence, and the mat­ter was ad­journed to Ju­ly 27. She re­mained in cus­tody, even as the PDOs against Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed were re­voked.

Ju­ly 27: Jus­tice Paul or­dered Sab­ga’s re­lease on strict house ar­rest pend­ing her con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge, find­ing there was a se­ri­ous is­sue to be tried and ques­tion­ing the need for her con­tin­ued de­ten­tion af­ter the Hadeeds had been re­leased. The or­der was stayed un­til 11.20 pm to al­low the State to seek an ap­peal.