Judge denies Hadeeds’ bid for release

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve will re­main de­tained while they pur­sue a case chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tion un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) over an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate key gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed the cou­ple’s ap­pli­ca­tion to be re­leased pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) is­sued against them days af­ter their ar­rest, last week.

He al­so dis­missed their habeas cor­pus writs seek­ing to have the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) jus­ti­fy their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion.

The out­come means that the cou­ple will re­main de­tained while the SoE re­mains in ef­fect un­til Sep­tem­ber, or un­less they suc­cess­ful­ly ap­peal Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s rul­ing.

When the writs came up for hear­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing, the cou­ple’s lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, sought per­mis­sion to amend the case to chal­lenge the le­gal­i­ty of the PDOs is­sued by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der un­der Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions for the SoE.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad grant­ed leave for them to pur­sue the amend­ed case, he de­cid­ed against re­leas­ing them pend­ing its de­ter­mi­na­tion.

He ruled that he found no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties with the PDOs is­sued by Alexan­der as the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­vid­ed on the doc­u­ment, based on in­tel­li­gence al­leged­ly gath­ered against the cou­ple, ap­peared con­sis­tent with the pur­pose of the or­ders to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty dur­ing the SoE.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “While the court ap­pre­ci­ates the dis­com­fort and dis­tress which will in­evitably re­sult from any form of de­ten­tion, it does hold the view that greater ir­repara­ble harm is like­ly to oc­cur if the ap­pli­cants/claimants are re­leased and if the in­tel­li­gence up­on which the po­lice and the min­is­ter have act­ed proves to be cred­i­ble.”

“The ju­di­cial arm of gov­ern­ment must re­spect the de­ci­sions of min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment on the ques­tion of whether the pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion of per­sons ac­cused of be­ing par­ties to al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plots con­sti­tutes a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” he added.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in the case, Mendes took is­sue with the fact that his clients were ini­tial­ly de­tained based on a search war­rant that did not men­tion de­ten­tion un­der the SoE reg­u­la­tions.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue, ASP Ram­dath Phillip, who rep­re­sent­ed the TTPS, not­ed that while po­lice of­fi­cers did not re­quire war­rants to search the cou­ple’s home and of­fices un­der the SoE, the war­rants were nec­es­sary to in­spect and analyse da­ta on elec­tron­ic de­vices which were seized. Phillip al­so re­vealed that the PDOs were sought as the TTPS could not com­plete the com­plex probe while the cou­ple were de­tained for 48 hours and sev­en days un­der the reg­u­la­tions.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad point­ed out that even if the con­cerns over the pro­ce­dure used were valid, such could not in­val­i­date the PDOs that were law­ful­ly is­sued.

“The is­suance of PDOs is legal­ly sep­a­rate and dis­tinct from cir­cum­stances in­volv­ing the ini­tial ar­rest and de­ten­tion of the ap­pli­cants/claimants,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

He al­so point­ed out that the war­rants were sub­ject to ju­di­cial over­sight be­fore be­ing grant­ed by a High Court Mas­ter.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so re­ject­ed com­plaints from the cou­ple that they were nev­er no­ti­fied that they were be­ing de­tained un­der the reg­u­la­tions.

He point­ed out that the on­ly ev­i­dence be­fore him were sta­tion di­ary ex­tracts pre­sent­ed by the TTPS, which showed that they were in fact in­formed.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad point­ed out that the reg­u­la­tions deal­ing with PDOs did not ex­tin­guish the court’s su­per­vi­so­ry ju­ris­dic­tion.

“In per­form­ing this func­tion, the court acts nei­ther as an ad­ver­sary of the Ex­ec­u­tive nor as a sub­sti­tute de­ci­sion-mak­er in mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. It acts, rather, as a con­sti­tu­tion­al stew­ard,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad agreed with the Hadeeds’ lawyers that a chal­lenge be­fore the SoE tri­bunal was not an ad­e­quate or ef­fec­tive le­gal rem­e­dy com­pared to the law­suit.

They point­ed out that while the tri­bunal may make rec­om­men­da­tions on the va­lid­i­ty of PDOs, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter is not bound by such ad­vice.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion would be an ad­e­quate rem­e­dy for false im­pris­on­ment if they are even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in their case.

Af­ter de­cid­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion, the Hadeeds’ lawyer re­quest­ed that the sub­stan­tive case be heard and de­ter­mined by an­oth­er judge based on Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s pre­lim­i­nary find­ings. He agreed and grant­ed the re­quest.

The Hadeeds and a 69-year-old rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, were de­tained last week as po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at their homes and of­fices.

The war­rants in­di­cat­ed that they were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der.

The PDOs, which would re­main in place while the SoE re­mains in ef­fect un­til mid-Sep­tem­ber, stat­ed that they were be­ing de­tained over an al­leged plot to mur­der Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and MPs.

The probe al­leged­ly stemmed from in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion that was not iden­ti­fied in the PDOs.

The cou­ple is al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Chase Pe­gus, and Car­lon McLeod. The TTPS was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Anya Ra­mute-Mo­han.

In a state­ment is­sued af­ter the rul­ing, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said he was pleased with the out­come, es­pe­cial­ly as the TTPS was rep­re­sent­ed by mem­bers of its le­gal de­part­ments as op­posed to ex­ter­nal at­tor­neys.

While he ac­knowl­edged that the “high-pro­file” case gen­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est, he called on cit­i­zens to re­frain from spec­u­lat­ing.

He as­sured: “The courts are avail­able to all cit­i­zens to chal­lenge any ac­tion tak­en by the po­lice, and in this par­tic­u­lar case, such a chal­lenge was pur­sued and ju­di­cial­ly de­ter­mined.”

“I trust that this de­ci­sion brings clo­sure to any con­ver­sa­tion on this mat­ter,” he added.

Gue­var­ro said that the probe in­to the al­le­ga­tions against the cou­ple will con­tin­ue.

“Due process is be­ing ob­served and as this in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­folds, the pub­lic will recog­nise that there are no sa­cred cows. The TTPS will treat all per­sons equal­ly, with­out fear or favour,” Gue­var­ro said.

Gue­var­ro shared the prover­bial say­ing, “Big gouti, small gouti, same shot!”

He re­it­er­at­ed the TTPS’s com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and equal treat­ment un­der the law.