Gonzales, Griffith question info that led to Hadeeds’ detention

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Gary Grif­fith say con­cerns over the ve­rac­i­ty of in­for­ma­tion that formed the ba­sis for the de­ten­tion of busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve for the past 22 days per­sist, even as the cou­ple re­mained in cus­tody af­ter the State got a late-night stay on an ear­li­er rul­ing or­der­ing their re­lease from in­car­cer­a­tion to house ar­rest by the Ap­peal Court. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia hours be­fore the late-night stay was grant­ed, Gon­za­les, who is al­so Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man and was a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) mem­ber un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, said the re­lease of the Hadeeds re­in­forced con­cerns raised by the Op­po­si­tion over the Gov­ern­ment’s use of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) to de­tain peo­ple. He again ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of weapon­is­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) to by­pass due process. 

“We have heard noth­ing from the po­lice as to what is the sta­tus of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion on these very se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions against the Hadeeds. The mere fact that they have been placed on a PDO for the past cou­ple of weeks sug­gests that the State does not have any ev­i­dence to prof­fer charges against the Hadeeds and that to me is very se­ri­ous, be­cause it says to me that the State is pre­pared to use emer­gency pow­ers vis-a-vis the is­suance of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders, to in­car­cer­ate peo­ple who do not have and whom they (the au­thor­i­ties) do not have ev­i­dence to sup­port any crim­i­nal charges against them.”

He added, “Again, it con­firms the rea­son why so many peo­ple and cit­i­zens who have been placed on PDOs have been re­leased with­out the po­lice prof­fer­ing charges against them.”

Re­fer­ring to the claims made against the Hadeeds and their in­volve­ment in a pur­port­ed plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and high-rank­ing Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, Gon­za­les stressed that such ac­cu­sa­tions should not be treat­ed light­ly and ought to be sup­port­ed by suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence. 

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, Grif­fith, who is a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er, was cau­tious to avoid com­men­tary on the in­ci­dent, as it was still be­fore the courts. How­ev­er, he said the Hadeeds’ re­lease was an ex­am­ple of a weak­ness in the in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing abil­i­ties of the au­thor­i­ties. 

Grif­fith took is­sue with the cur­rent sys­tem where­by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der has the sole au­thor­i­ty to is­sue PDOs, not­ing that such se­ri­ous de­ci­sion-mak­ing should rest with the TTPS to pre­vent abuse by politi­cians. 

“That shows there is a prob­lem, there is some­thing falling short in in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing in the coun­try. If some­thing is so se­ri­ous that you can’t ac­cu­mu­late enough in­tel­li­gence to turn it in­to ev­i­dence and you can’t charge some­one, you now turn it in­to a PDO.

“It can­not be a min­is­ter who has the sole au­thor­i­ty to have a PDO; it must have a trig­ger sole­ly from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, it can­not be an un­named in­tel­li­gence agency, rea­son be­ing is be­cause the SSA, for in­stance, ... the per­son there is ap­point­ed there by politi­cians and they can send a doc­u­ment that is hearsay.”

Grif­fith was al­so crit­i­cal of the man­ner in which in­tel­li­gence was gath­ered, as he ac­cused the au­thor­i­ties of un­der­util­is­ing the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC). 

“Un­til we utilise the NOC in a prop­er man­ner, not the way it’s be­ing used now, which is as a call cen­tre and a dis­patch cen­tre, we will con­tin­ue to have prob­lems.”

Mean­while, re­tired Lt Cm­dr and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Nor­man Din­di­al agreed the Hadeeds’ re­lease did not give re­as­sur­ance that the Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the SoE re­spon­si­bly. 

Re­fer­ring to the sig­nif­i­cance of the ac­cu­sa­tions be­ing made against them, Din­di­al asked, “What changed? The threat didn’t dis­ap­pear overnight ... what changed was the pub­lic pres­sure and the le­gal weak­ness­es in your case. 

“Who gave the or­der? Be­cause PDOs are a po­lit­i­cal sig­na­ture and this now looks like a po­lit­i­cal witch hunt dressed up as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. You can’t use Emer­gency Pow­ers to sup­press speech, to pun­ish crit­ics or to send a mes­sage, that is not polic­ing, that is in­tim­i­da­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for com­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful up to press time. 

Ef­forts to con­tact At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie via phone call and What­sApp were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.