Hadeeds released as Homeland Security Minister revokes PDOs

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has re­voked the Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued against busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve Hadeed, say­ing their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion was no longer pro­por­tion­ate while the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, Alexan­der said he re­voked the or­ders af­ter re­view­ing the le­gal, med­ical and con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues sur­round­ing the cou­ple’s de­ten­tion.

The Hadeeds were ar­rest­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice on June 24 as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and se­nior mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment. Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders were is­sued against them on June 27 un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026 dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

Alexan­der stressed that the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains ac­tive.

He said he had con­tin­u­ous­ly re­viewed whether the de­ten­tion re­mained law­ful and jus­ti­fied un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. He al­so not­ed that the Re­view Tri­bunal, es­tab­lished un­der Sec­tion 11(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, rec­om­mend­ed on Ju­ly 19 that the con­tin­ued de­ten­tion of the Hadeeds was “not nec­es­sary or ex­pe­di­ent in the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

The min­is­ter al­so re­ferred to a med­ical re­port re­ceived on Ju­ly 21 con­cern­ing Do­minic Hadeed’s health and treat­ment re­quire­ments. While he con­sid­ered the re­port and sought in­de­pen­dent med­ical ad­vice, Alexan­der said Hadeed de­clined to be ex­am­ined by a spe­cial­ist ap­point­ed by the State.

Alexan­der said he was re­quired to bal­ance the de­tainees’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to lib­er­ty against the need to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tors had ad­vised that the probe had ex­pand­ed be­yond its orig­i­nal scope and now spans mul­ti­ple ju­ris­dic­tions, re­quir­ing co­op­er­a­tion among lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies.

How­ev­er, Alexan­der said sev­er­al fac­tors ul­ti­mate­ly favoured the cou­ple’s re­lease.

Among them was the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion not to hear the State’s sub­stan­tive ap­peal on an ex­pe­dit­ed ba­sis. He said this meant the stay grant­ed in favour of the State would like­ly have kept the Hadeeds in prison un­til the end of the State of Emer­gency.

“I recog­nise that con­tin­u­ing de­ten­tion in those cir­cum­stances would be dis­pro­por­tion­ate,” Alexan­der said.

He said the Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders had there­fore been re­voked and the Hadeeds or­dered re­leased.

Alexan­der added that the TTPS had as­sured him the cou­ple would re­main un­der mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance to en­sure the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not com­pro­mised and that mea­sures have been put in place to pro­tect any­one who may still be at risk.

He al­so said he ex­pects the Hadeeds to co­op­er­ate ful­ly with all law en­force­ment agen­cies in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.