Alexander compares Sabga/Hadeed case to Tupac murder probe

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Less than 24 hours af­ter Star Sab­ga was re­leased from house ar­rest un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) im­posed dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­mains ac­tive.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Alexan­der cit­ed the decades-long in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of US rap­per Tu­pac Shakur as an ex­am­ple of how crim­i­nal probes can take years be­fore reach­ing a con­clu­sion.

Sab­ga, her niece Genevieve Hadeed, and Hadeed’s hus­band, Do­minic Hadeed, were ar­rest­ed on June 24 as part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot.

Three days lat­er, PDOs were is­sued against the trio un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

The Hadeeds were re­leased on Ju­ly 23, while Sab­ga re­mained un­der house ar­rest un­til Thurs­day, when she was al­so re­leased.

How­ev­er, Alexan­der said her re­lease does not sig­nal the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Let me draw ref­er­ence to what you’re talk­ing about there. You re­mem­ber Tu­pac Shakur? Tu­pac Shakur was shot in 1996 and the per­son was on­ly charged this year. That’s how in­ves­ti­ga­tions go. It’s not over till it’s over,” he said.

Du­ane Kei­th “Keffe D” Davis was charged in 2023 in con­nec­tion with Shakur’s 1996 mur­der. In Au­gust this year, a Las Ve­gas ju­ry found Davis guilty of first-de­gree mur­der, near­ly 30 years af­ter the rap­per was killed.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ques­tioned why peo­ple de­tained un­der PDOs were be­ing re­leased with­out charges.

With­out nam­ing Sab­ga or the Hadeeds, Beck­les said the is­sue formed part of broad­er con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment’s use of emer­gency pow­ers.

“Let’s go back to the orig­i­nal con­spir­a­cy to mur­der gov­ern­ment mem­bers, the ju­di­cia­ry, sev­er­al per­sons. Notwith­stand­ing that, we have seen them all out in pub­lic, whether it be at crick­et and oth­er events. Dur­ing the first SoE, we gave the Gov­ern­ment the ben­e­fit of the doubt. But now you have had thou­sands of PDOs. I made the point a cou­ple of days ago that when it ex­pires, hun­dreds of peo­ple are go­ing to be re­leased,” Beck­les said.

“The ques­tion aris­es: why aren’t these peo­ple be­ing charged? It can­not be that you’re us­ing your ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers un­der the State of Emer­gency to sim­ply ar­rest peo­ple, keep them in cus­tody and then re­lease them.”

How­ev­er, in Par­lia­ment last evening, Alexan­der re­vealed that 245 peo­ple had been charged as a re­sult of SoE-re­lat­ed op­er­a­tions.

The SoE is sched­uled to ex­pire on Sep­tem­ber 17.

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning al­so crit­i­cised the re­lease of Sab­ga and the Hadeeds with­out charges, say­ing it high­light­ed wider con­cerns about the use of emer­gency pow­ers.

“That’s a prime ex­am­ple of hav­ing an SoE. Un­der an SoE, your con­sti­tu­tion­al rights have been sus­pend­ed, so the Gov­ern­ment feels free to do those kinds of things to cit­i­zens of this coun­try. This should not be al­lowed and it can­not be al­lowed,” he said.

Man­ning al­so op­posed any ex­ten­sion of the SoE, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment could not con­tin­ue re­strict­ing cit­i­zens’ rights while re­ly­ing on what he de­scribed as a mea­sure of last re­sort.

He fur­ther ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of pos­ing a threat to the coun­try’s pop­u­la­tion.