Hadeeds’ lawyer admits their PDO challenge no longer urgent

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

With busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve, and her 69-year-old aunt Star Sab­ga no longer in prison, there is no longer the same need for their law­suits over their de­ten­tions for a pur­port­ed plot to as­sas­si­nate key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to be de­ter­mined ur­gent­ly.

The trio’s lawyer Rishi Dass, SC, made the con­ces­sion when their sub­stan­tive cas­es came up for case man­age­ment be­fore Jus­tice Vigel Paul yes­ter­day.

“The im­me­di­ate ur­gency in the mat­ter has been less­ened in a way,” Dass said, as he in­formed Jus­tice Paul that his or­der di­rect­ing that Sab­ga be placed on house ar­rest had been com­plied with.

Dass in­di­cat­ed that his clients wished to amend their re­spec­tive cas­es to in­clude de­vel­op­ments that took place af­ter it was filed ear­li­er this month.

At­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen, who is rep­re­sent­ing the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) did not op­pose the move.

How­ev­er, he claimed the trio’s lawyers could not change ma­te­r­i­al as­pects of their ini­tial­ly plead­ed cas­es.

Ramdeen al­so agreed that the Hadeeds’ case and the one filed sep­a­rate­ly in re­la­tion to Sab­ga could be heard to­geth­er by Jus­tice Paul.

Jus­tice Paul set rel­a­tive­ly lengthy dead­lines for the amend­ment and for the State to file its de­fences and ev­i­dence. He ad­journed the case to Oc­to­ber 19.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, the trio’s oth­er lawyer, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, ques­tioned whether Jus­tice Paul’s house ar­rest or­der in re­la­tion to Sab­ga, which was grant­ed pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of her case, could be amend­ed to last on­ly while the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) in re­la­tion to her re­mains in place.

Pe­ter­son sug­gest­ed that the PDO would ex­pire when the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) ends in mid-Sep­tem­ber and if it is not ex­tend­ed again or re­newed.

He said based on the cur­rent or­der, she could po­ten­tial­ly re­main un­der house ar­rest con­di­tions with­out a PDO be­ing in place while her case is be­ing con­sid­ered.

Ramdeen de­clined to com­mit to such, say­ing he would get back to the court af­ter con­sid­er­ing the is­sue fur­ther and talk­ing to her le­gal team in the next few days.

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

The cou­ple’s 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 de­ten­tions 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 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.

In their sub­stan­tive case, the trio are chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tions and al­leg­ing they are be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment based on their eth­nic­i­ty and a le­gal chal­lenge from the Hadeeds over a move to ter­mi­nate their leas­es for State land.

They are claim­ing their ar­rests came af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie made veiled threats di­rect­ed at them while ad­dress­ing a par­lia­men­tary de­bate on ex­tend­ing the SoE. They have al­so raised is­sues with the grounds used for their de­ten­tions, as state­ments al­leged­ly made by Sab­ga in an in­ter­cept­ed con­ver­sa­tion with Genevieve were wrong­ly at­trib­uted to Hadeed in his PDO.

Ramdeen has ap­plied to strike out as­pects of the case deal­ing with the par­lia­men­tary state­ments.

The Hadeeds are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Chase Pe­gus, Dhar­men­dra Pun­wasee, Jerome Ra­j­coomar 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.