Acting Chief Magistrate: I have done no wrong

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing fol­low­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant by the po­lice at his Gulf View, San Fer­nan­do, res­i­dence on Mon­day.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed that the raid was part of a mul­ti-na­tion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion. While di­vulging on­ly a few de­tails, he con­firmed that items of ev­i­den­tial val­ue were seized from the mag­is­trate.

Gue­var­ro said: “This mat­ter forms part of a broad­er po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners.

“At this point, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is at a sen­si­tive stage and thus I am un­able to com­ment on the spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tional de­tails and any po­ten­tial fu­ture in­ves­tiga­tive steps. To do so could com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and any sub­se­quent ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings.”

Gue­var­ro added that no one was ex­empt from the law and sought to as­sure the pub­lic that any such en­quiry would be done pro­fes­sion­al­ly and im­par­tial­ly.

“All al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct are thor­ough­ly ex­am­ined wher­ev­er the ev­i­dence leads.”

He al­so urged the pub­lic to avoid spec­u­la­tion as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues and promised to pro­vide up­dates once it would not jeop­ar­dise the in­tegri­ty of the probe.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Dabideen’s at­tor­neys Prakash Ra­mad­har, Michael Rooplal and Vis­han Gir­war said he ful­ly co­op­er­at­ed with po­lice and hand­ed over all rel­e­vant de­vices stip­u­lat­ed un­der the war­rant.

“Our client cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nies any wrong­do­ing. He re­mains stead­fast in his com­mit­ment to the rule of law, the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the prin­ci­ples of in­tegri­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty which un­der­pin the ju­di­cial of­fice he holds.”

They al­so com­mend­ed the of­fi­cers for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism dur­ing the ex­er­cise, adding that, “Dabideen recog­nis­es the law­ful au­thor­i­ty of in­ves­tiga­tive agen­cies and re­spects the le­gal process.”

How­ev­er, the at­tor­neys stressed that the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant does not es­tab­lish that an of­fence has been com­mit­ted and cau­tioned against draw­ing any in­fer­ence of guilt against their client.

“No ad­verse in­fer­ence of guilt should be drawn mere­ly from the ex­e­cu­tion of such a war­rant. Our client re­mains en­ti­tled to the full pro­tec­tion of the law, in­clud­ing the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence and the right to due process.”

They said Dabideen re­mained en­ti­tled to the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence and due process. The at­tor­neys al­so en­dorsed the Ju­di­cia­ry’s call for due process and fair­ness.

“It is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant, giv­en the ju­di­cial of­fice held by our client, that the in­ves­tiga­tive process be per­mit­ted to pro­ceed in­de­pen­dent­ly, fair­ly and with­out spec­u­la­tion, con­jec­ture or pre­ma­ture con­clu­sions.”

They al­so cau­tioned that un­found­ed al­le­ga­tions could have con­se­quences.

“Un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tions and pub­lic spec­u­la­tion risk caus­ing un­war­rant­ed prej­u­dice, not on­ly to our client’s rep­u­ta­tion and pro­fes­sion­al stand­ing, but al­so to pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.”

The at­tor­neys said they would not com­ment fur­ther on the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but their client ex­pects the process to pro­ceed fair­ly, in­de­pen­dent­ly and in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Sources con­firmed that the act­ing chief mag­is­trate is still per­form­ing his du­ties. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Dabideen’s res­i­dence in the up­scale neigh­bour­hood of Gulf View, the ex­te­ri­or lights on the house were on, but the sur­round­ings were qui­et and there were no signs of ac­tiv­i­ty.

In June, Dabideen ap­peared at a news con­fer­ence along­side his at­tor­neys, who de­fend­ed his han­dling of court mat­ters fol­low­ing re­ports of an im­pend­ing ar­rest of a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer over al­le­ga­tions that bribes had been re­ceived in ex­change for favourable court rul­ings.

The Chief Mag­is­trate over­sees the Mag­is­tra­cy Di­vi­sion, su­per­vis­ing mag­is­trates and court staff. The of­fice han­dles high-pro­file cas­es in Port-of-Spain, pet­ty civ­il mat­ters and in­quests.