Khan: Hadeeds’ case raises socio-eonomic inequalities in T&T

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, says the de­ci­sion to re­lease Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed from prison and place them un­der house ar­rest has on­ly un­der­scored the so­cio-eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ties that ex­ist in this coun­try.

The Hadeeds were ar­rest­ed on June 24 and spent 22 days in cus­tody be­fore be­ing or­dered re­leased from prison yes­ter­day and placed un­der house ar­rest by the Ap­peal Court. How­ev­er, the State last night se­cured a stay of that de­ci­sion from an­oth­er Ap­peal Court pan­el of judges, pend­ing a chal­lenge of the ear­li­er de­ci­sion to the Privy Coun­cil.

Re­spond­ing short­ly af­ter the ini­tial vir­tu­al de­ci­sion was hand­ed down by Jus­tices of Ap­peal Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er and Joan Charles in the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day, Khan said, “This could sig­nal to the coun­try that there’s one law for the im­pov­er­ished and an­oth­er law for the rich, and I hope not.”

De­spite this, he added, “I have con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry and that due process has tak­en place.”

The Hadeeds had been de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency and in­car­cer­at­ed at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison and the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca, re­spec­tive­ly.

Told that the cou­ple’s re­lease was sub­ject to con­di­tion­al­i­ties re­strict­ing their lib­er­ty and free­dom of move­ment, Khan agreed the au­thor­i­ties “could re­al­ly mon­i­tor them.”

How­ev­er, he ques­tioned, “What about oth­er per­sons who are in a sim­i­lar po­si­tion? Would they be treat­ed equal­ly? I do not know.”

He added, “I have con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry, but I hope it does not sig­nal to the mis­guid­ed that there’s one law for the rich and one for the poor.”

Say­ing the de­ci­sion had set a prece­dent, he said, “Let’s hope every­thing works out to the best be­cause they have not been charged at the same time.”

Khan al­so urged peo­ple to be cau­tious about spec­u­lat­ing fur­ther on the case.

“We do not know the ev­i­dence, whether it is co­gent and com­pelling against them, or whether the po­lice could car­ry out their in­ves­ti­ga­tions while hav­ing them, vir­tu­al­ly, un­der house ar­rest.”

Pressed on the al­leged cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence that had been re­lied up­on by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to ini­tial­ly ar­rest the cou­ple on charges of con­spir­a­cy to mur­der the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, Khan said, “The pub­lic can­not look at that.”

He said what the pub­lic ought to be con­cerned with was the in­tel­li­gence and ev­i­dence the TTPS had in their pos­ses­sion.

“We do not know the qual­i­ty of the ev­i­dence, or the co­gency of the ev­i­dence and the in­for­ma­tion, but they do not need strong ev­i­dence. They need pri­ma fa­cie ev­i­dence, which could be true or false, to in­ves­ti­gate,” he ex­plained.

“What the pub­lic have to look at is if there’s oth­er peo­ple in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions with 22 days (in cus­tody) and no charges, and they do not know the qual­i­ty of the ev­i­dence, whether they will get a sim­i­lar con­sid­er­a­tion.

“But in the fi­nal analy­sis, I have con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry. They might have done the right thing and that will cause the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and those who are in­ves­ti­gat­ing to speed up their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Criston Williams praised the ju­di­cial rul­ing, which he hailed as “great.”

And just like Khan, he too ques­tioned what it meant for oth­er peo­ple in SoE de­ten­tion who do not pos­sess the same wealth as the Hadeeds.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that it would have tak­en con­sid­er­able fi­nan­cial re­sources for the Hadeeds to pur­sue the mat­ter, he said, “It high­lights fun­da­men­tal­ly the plight of the oth­er 99 per cent of per­sons who are still cur­rent­ly de­tained un­der PDOs.”

Williams said the rul­ing had brought in­to sharp fo­cus just how in­tel­li­gence had been jux­ta­posed against na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

“And I do not think there’s one re­port that any politi­cian could stand on, that they have jus­ti­fied the use of na­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, both across the UNC and or the PNM, es­pe­cial­ly with re­gards to the op­er­a­tions of the SSA.”

Like Khan, Williams was al­so con­cerned about oth­er PDO cas­es.

“This def­i­nite­ly opens the flood­gates. This def­i­nite­ly opens the fi­nan­cial purse of the State, which is up to every sin­gle per­son that has been de­tained by way of a PDO. And the in­tel­li­gence just may not be ac­cu­rate. It is a very con­cern­ing po­si­tion.”

Call­ing on sev­er­al of­fice hold­ers, in­clud­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, to shut down these “flood­gate ar­gu­ments,” Williams de­mand­ed they in­ves­ti­gate the use of in­tel­li­gence im­me­di­ate­ly.

Stat­ing that the po­lice usu­al­ly re­lied on strong in­tel­li­gence to make their cas­es, he said, “Too many peo­ple have died. Too many peo­ple have suf­fered. And too many peo­ple are suf­fer­ing with wan­ton dis­re­gard for the dam­age it caus­es by spec­u­la­tive me­dia as­ser­tions, spec­u­la­tive state­ments un­der the cov­er of Par­lia­ment. It just sim­ply is wrong and it must stop.”