State given until Monday to say if it will continue Star Sabga case

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have been giv­en un­til Mon­day to de­cide whether to with­draw an ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to place 69-year-old cheese mak­er Star Sab­ga on house ar­rest, af­ter she spent sev­er­al weeks in prison on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO). 

Ap­pel­late Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine grant­ed the ad­journ­ment yes­ter­day as the ap­peal came up for case man­age­ment. 

The hear­ing took place hours af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der ex­er­cised his dis­cre­tion to with­draw the PDO, ef­fec­tive­ly bring­ing Sab­ga’s de­ten­tion at her West­moor­ings apart­ment to an end. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Brown-An­toine ques­tioned whether the ap­peal was now aca­d­e­m­ic based on the PDO re­vo­ca­tion and the ex­pect­ed end of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) next week.

Sab­ga, her niece Genevieve Hadeed and her hus­band Do­minic were de­tained un­der PDOs dur­ing the on­go­ing SoE in late June based on pur­port­ed in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA). 

The rel­a­tives were ac­cused of con­spir­ing to­geth­er to al­leged­ly as­sas­si­nate key gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. 

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 even­tu­al­ly re­voked 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. 

In late Ju­ly, High Court Judge Vigel Paul agreed to place Sab­ga un­der house ar­rest con­di­tions that were set by the ini­tial Ap­peal Court pan­el for the Hadeeds. The TTPS and the AG’s Of­fice ap­pealed the rul­ing.  

The trio are cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a sub­stan­tive law­suit chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tion and al­leg­ing they are be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment based on their eth­nic­i­ty and a sep­a­rate le­gal chal­lenge from the Hadeeds over a move to ter­mi­nate their leas­es for State land in Tacarigua. 

They are claim­ing that their ar­rests came af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, 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. 

The sub­stan­tive case is sched­uled to come up for hear­ing on Oc­to­ber 19. 

The Hadeeds were rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus, Dhar­men­dra Pun­wasee, Jerome Ra­jku­mar and Car­lon Mc Leod. 

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