Jeremie stands by police, Alexander in Hadeed case

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has ex­pressed con­fi­dence in both Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice de­spite crit­i­cism over the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the high-pro­file Hadeed mat­ter, in­sist­ing he sup­ports the ac­tions tak­en in the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that he had lost con­fi­dence in ei­ther the min­is­ter or law en­force­ment fol­low­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued against busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve.

“The ques­tion of charg­ing is dif­fer­ent from a de­ci­sion to en­sure the pub­lic good and I sup­port the ef­forts of the po­lice and the agen­cies in that mat­ter and the work of my col­league in Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty,” Je­re­mie said.

His com­ments come amid grow­ing calls from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for Alexan­der to re­sign over his han­dling of the Hadeeds’ de­ten­tion and the even­tu­al re­vo­ca­tion of the PDOs.

The AG al­so ap­peared to dis­miss sug­ges­tions that the in­abil­i­ty to lay crim­i­nal charges against the Hadeeds un­der­mined the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for their de­ten­tion.

He re­it­er­at­ed a point he made pre­vi­ous­ly fol­low­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of the PDOs, name­ly that dif­fer­ent le­gal stan­dards ap­ply when au­thor­i­ties de­cide to de­tain some­one in the pub­lic in­ter­est as op­posed to bring­ing crim­i­nal charges be­fore the courts.

The Hadeeds were de­tained un­der emer­gency pow­ers ear­li­er this month, prompt­ing le­gal chal­lenges and wide­spread pub­lic de­bate over the scope of the State’s pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion pow­ers.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked Je­re­mie whether he was dis­ap­point­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors had been un­able to bring charges against the Hadeeds, who were named in an al­leged plot to kill Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, fol­low­ing their de­ten­tion.

How­ev­er, the AG did not di­rect­ly an­swer that ques­tion.

Je­re­mie al­so said no fees have yet been paid to the at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment but in­sist­ed that up­hold­ing the rule of law is worth the cost.

Guardian Me­dia asked Je­re­mie whether any pay­ments had al­ready been made to the at­tor­neys re­tained by the State and whether he was con­cerned about the fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions of the case.

While con­firm­ing no fees have yet been paid, the AG stressed that the cost of de­fend­ing the prin­ci­ple of equal jus­tice should not be viewed as an un­nec­es­sary ex­pense.

“I have paid no fees so far. Over­all, my bud­get has been cut, by my own as­sess­ment, by 80 per cent as far as fees are con­cerned,” Je­re­mie said.

How­ev­er, he added, “I will pay to demon­strate that the rule of law re­quires that wrong­do­ing is dealt with equal­ly. That for me is a pri­or­i­ty pay­ment.”

The State’s le­gal team com­pris­es two King’s Coun­sel, Sir James Ray­mond Ead­ie and Robert Stephen Strang, as well as at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen, who is al­so chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny.

Je­re­mie’s com­ments came days af­ter Alexan­der re­voked the PDOs is­sued against the Hadeeds, bring­ing their weeks-long de­ten­tions un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency to an end with­out crim­i­nal charges be­ing laid.

The Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion has trig­gered po­lit­i­cal crit­i­cism and re­newed scruti­ny over the han­dling of the case, with the PNM ques­tion­ing whether tax­pay­ers could ul­ti­mate­ly be left foot­ing a sig­nif­i­cant le­gal bill.