Opposition awaits facts in Dabideen case

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion, in­clud­ing leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, say they are wait­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen to pro­ceed with­out mak­ing any pub­lic com­ments to en­sure the mat­ter can con­tin­ue with­out in­ter­fer­ence or hin­drance.

In a state­ment via her of­fi­cial Face­book ac­count yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Beck­les took note of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter a me­dia re­lease from the Ju­di­cia­ry yes­ter­day, which ac­knowl­edged re­ports on the mat­ter.

She not­ed that as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon there was no me­dia state­ment post­ed on the web­site of the TTPS or from the Min­istry of Jus­tice and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Beck­les not­ed that while the Op­po­si­tion was con­cerned about such mat­ters in­volv­ing a sit­ting Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate, she pre­ferred not to com­ment un­til the full facts were dis­closed.

“We must, out of sheer re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, join the Ju­di­cia­ry in abid­ing by due process and the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence and must al­so await in­for­ma­tion from those with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­fore com­ing to any view, let alone con­clu­sion.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er yes­ter­day as she ar­rived at the Par­lia­ment to at­tend a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, Beck­les said she saw re­ports that Dabideen’s elec­tron­ic de­vices were con­fis­cat­ed as part of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but did not want to com­ment fur­ther.

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle al­so urged the pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble in their com­men­tary on the mat­ter, not­ing that a search by it­self did not es­tab­lish guilt, adding that un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion all cit­i­zens were en­ti­tled to a pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence.

“The pub­lic should main­tain some lev­el of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and not jump to con­clu­sions and al­low the course of jus­tice to have its way in a nat­ur­al and fair man­ner.” When asked if he felt ad­di­tion­al de­tails sur­round­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should be re­vealed con­sid­er­ing the sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est, Mar­celle said such en­quiries re­quired some de­gree of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

“We have not had all the facts in the pub­lic and there­fore I think we ought to re­spect the pri­va­cy of the Chief Mag­is­trate and al­low him to go through this process in a fair, ac­count­able and trans­par­ent way.”

For­mer prime min­is­ter and MP for Port-of-Spain North/ St Ann’s West Stu­art Young, when asked about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, de­clined to make any pro­nounce­ments.

“I am not get­ting in­volved in that at all. As I said, we wait to see where this is go­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Min­is­ter of Jus­tice De­vesh Ma­haraj via What­sApp and phone call, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to news time.