Gazetted detention orders on Hadeeds, Sabga outline full allegations

The le­gal no­tices set­ting out the grounds for the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued against busi­ness ex­ec­u­tives Do­minic Hadeed, Genevieve Hadeed and Star Sab­ga have now been pub­lished, al­leg­ing they were in­volved in an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment.

The Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gazette, signed by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, out­lines the in­tel­li­gence said to have in­formed the de­ten­tion or­ders made un­der Reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to the no­tices, au­thor­i­ties al­lege the three de­tainees were linked to a con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and posed a threat to pub­lic safe­ty dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

The no­tice re­lat­ing to Do­minic Hadeed, dat­ed June 27, claims in­tel­li­gence iden­ti­fied him as be­ing in­volved in "an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate se­nior mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and/or oth­er serv­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment."

It al­leges that fol­low­ing state­ments made in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency, Hadeed ex­pressed vi­o­lent in­ten­tions by "stat­ing words to the ef­fect that per­sons would be shot in their head."

The no­tice fur­ther claims those state­ments were made in fur­ther­ance of a de­vel­op­ing plan to tar­get mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment and al­leges Hadeed, be­cause of his fi­nan­cial means and in­flu­ence, had the re­sources and ca­pa­bil­i­ty to fa­cil­i­tate se­ri­ous or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

It al­so claims his con­tin­ued lib­er­ty pre­sent­ed "a re­al and im­me­di­ate risk" of fa­cil­i­tat­ing plans in­tend­ed to desta­bilise the Gov­ern­ment through vi­o­lence.

Genevieve Hadeed's de­ten­tion or­der, al­so dat­ed June 27, al­leges in­tel­li­gence iden­ti­fied her as par­tic­i­pat­ing in the same con­spir­a­cy.

Ac­cord­ing to the no­tice, in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed she made state­ments sug­gest­ing "the death of the Prime Min­is­ter, mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment and mem­bers of Par­lia­ment were re­quired" fol­low­ing re­marks made dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate on ex­tend­ing the State of Emer­gency.

The no­tice al­so al­leges she was as­so­ci­at­ed with oth­ers in­volved in the con­spir­a­cy and that her con­tin­ued lib­er­ty cre­at­ed a sub­stan­tial risk that plans to car­ry out vi­o­lence against Gov­ern­ment mem­bers could pro­ceed.

Star Sab­ga's de­ten­tion or­der, dat­ed June 26, al­leges in­tel­li­gence iden­ti­fied her as play­ing "a sig­nif­i­cant role in an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Ac­cord­ing to the no­tice, Sab­ga al­leged­ly made re­peat­ed state­ments ad­vo­cat­ing vi­o­lence against Gov­ern­ment mem­bers dur­ing dis­cus­sions con­cern­ing the present Gov­ern­ment and en­cour­aged col­lec­tive vi­o­lent ac­tion.

The no­tice al­so al­leges she had ac­cess to peo­ple ca­pa­ble of fa­cil­i­tat­ing vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and that her con­duct formed part of a wider plan to desta­bilise the Gov­ern­ment. It fur­ther claims she and oth­ers pos­sessed "the con­sid­er­able means" to car­ry out such an at­tack.

Each no­tice con­cludes that a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der was nec­es­sary to dis­rupt the al­leged plans and pre­vent the de­tainees from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.

The pub­li­ca­tion of the le­gal no­tices comes days af­ter the de­ten­tions at­tract­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion and prompt­ed le­gal chal­lenges from the de­tainees' at­tor­neys.

All three have de­nied any wrong­do­ing, and their le­gal teams have main­tained that the al­le­ga­tions are un­sup­port­ed and that the de­ten­tion or­ders are un­law­ful. Mat­ters re­lat­ing to the de­ten­tion or­ders re­main be­fore the courts.