Hadeeds complain of poor detention conditions

Se­nior Coun­sel Faris Al Rawi has filed a writ of habeas cor­pus in the High Court against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, al­leg­ing thabusi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve Hadeed, have bee un­law­ful­ly de­tained and sub­ject­ed to de­grad­ing con­di­tions while in po­lice cus­tody.

In an af­fi­davit filed in sup­port of the ap­pli­ca­tion, Al Rawi de­scribed the con­di­tions in which Genevieve Hadeed was held at the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion af­ter she was trans­ferred there on the night of June 24. He said the cell mea­sured about eight feet by six feet, had a dirty ter­raz­zo floor, no bed­ding or fur­ni­ture, a hole in the floor used as a toi­let, no run­ning wa­ter, and reeked of fae­ces and urine. He said there was no ven­ti­la­tion, the light­ing was poor, and cock­roach­es were crawl­ing across the floor. An­oth­er fe­male de­tainee was curled up on the floor in a fe­tal po­si­tion.

Al Rawi al­so claimed Do­minic Hadeed, who suf­fers from sleep ap­noea and wears an or­thopaedic leg brace, was de­tained at the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion, where he was forced to sleep on a bare con­crete slab with­out ac­cess to his CPAP ma­chine be­cause there was no elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion avail­able in the cell. He said Hadeed was un­able to sleep be­cause of his med­ical con­di­tion.

The af­fi­davit states that Do­minic Hadeed and Genevieve Hadeed were ar­rest­ed on June 24 dur­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of search war­rants at their Shore­lands, West­moor­ings home. Po­lice lat­er took Do­minic Hadeed to Gulf City Mall, where firearms and am­mu­ni­tion li­censed un­der his Firearm User’s Li­cence and Firearm User’s Em­ploy­ee’s Cer­tifi­cate were col­lect­ed. Al Rawi said re­ceipts show­ing the an­nu­al li­cence fees for 2026 had been pro­duced to in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers and that the firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were law­ful­ly held.

The af­fi­davit fur­ther states that the cou­ple was sep­a­rat­ed lat­er that evening, with Do­minic Hadeed tak­en to the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion and Genevieve Hadeed to the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion. Al Rawi said po­lice ini­tial­ly in­formed him that an ex­ten­sion of the cou­ple’s de­ten­tion had been ob­tained and specif­i­cal­ly in­di­cat­ed it was not un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der or the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. How­ev­er, when he lat­er vis­it­ed Genevieve Hadeed at the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion, she pro­duced a no­tice ex­tend­ing her de­ten­tion un­der Reg­u­la­tion 13(3) of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

The af­fi­davit says this was the first time the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions had been men­tioned to her. Al Rawi said he im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer, Cor­po­ral El­don Cal­liste, and ob­ject­ed that nei­ther his clients nor their le­gal team had been in­formed in ad­vance that they were be­ing de­tained un­der the reg­u­la­tions.

When Al Rawi lat­er vis­it­ed Do­minic Hadeed at the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion, he said Hadeed was al­so served with a di­rec­tion ex­tend­ing his de­ten­tion for sev­en days un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. The habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion ar­gues that the cou­ple were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of or­di­nary search war­rants in con­nec­tion with an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to con­spir­a­cy to mur­der and were not de­tained un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions at the time of their ar­rest. It con­tends that their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion un­der those reg­u­la­tions is un­law­ful and asks the High Court to or­der their re­lease.

Do­minic Hadeed, the own­er of Blue Wa­ters Lim­it­ed, and his wife were ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day. Genevieve Hadeed’s 69-year-old ma­ter­nal aunt, Star Sab­ga, was de­tained on Thurs­day. Their ar­rests came 13 days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­dorsed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s warn­ing that no seg­ment of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing the so-called “one per cent”, was be­yond the reach of the law.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has said the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant is a stan­dard in­ves­tiga­tive pro­ce­dure and does not con­sti­tute a find­ing of wrong­do­ing.