SoE debate linked to Hadeeds’ detention

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Al­though the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) for busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve are yet to be gazetted, in­for­ma­tion con­tin­ues to emerge on the con­tribut­ing fac­tors that led to their ar­rest.

One of the al­le­ga­tions in the PDOs is that a con­ver­sa­tion fol­low­ing the re­cent de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency sparked a con­ver­sa­tion which put the Hadeeds on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) radar.

The in­for­ma­tion is con­tained in an af­fi­davit filed by at­tor­ney Ram­dath Phillip, of the TTPS, on be­half of act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Videsh Ma­haraj, in the mat­ter now be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad, where the Hadeeds are chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tions.

It was re­vealed that the cou­ple was in­formed that PDOs were is­sued in their names by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der on June 27. The PDOs were served on the Hadeeds lat­er that same day.

The de­ten­tion or­der for Do­minic Hadeed read: “The de­tainee, Do­minic Hadeed, had been cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied through in­tel­li­gence re­ceived as be­ing in­volved in an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate se­nior mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and/or serv­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. The in­tel­li­gence in­di­cates that, fol­low­ing state­ments made in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the present State of Emer­gency, the de­tainee ex­pressed vi­o­lent in­ten­tions by stat­ing words to the ef­fect that per­sons would be shot in their head. In­tel­li­gence fur­ther in­di­cates that these state­ments were made in fur­ther­ance of a de­vel­op­ing plan to tar­get mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment. The de­tainee is a per­son of sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial means and in­flu­ence with the re­sources, ac­cess and ca­pa­bil­i­ty to fa­cil­i­tate se­ri­ous or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. In­tel­li­gence fur­ther in­di­cates that his con­tin­ued lib­er­ty presents a re­al and im­me­di­ate risk of fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of plans in­tend­ed to desta­bilise the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go through vi­o­lence.”

The PDO was is­sued pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026, which pro­claimed it was, “Nec­es­sary to dis­rupt these plans and pre­vent him from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The PDO is­sued in the name of Genevieve Hadeed con­tained sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tions and claimed it was “nec­es­sary to pro­vide for her pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion with a view to pre­vent­ing her from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The PDO con­tin­ued, “The de­tainee, Genevieve Hadeed, al­so called Genevierve Hadeed, has been cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied as par­tic­i­pat­ing in an on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy di­rect­ed at the as­sas­si­na­tion of mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“In­tel­li­gence in­di­cates that the de­tainee made state­ments to the ef­fect that the death of the Prime Min­is­ter, mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment and mem­bers of Par­lia­ment were re­quired fol­low­ing pub­lic state­ments made dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency. The in­tel­li­gence fur­ther demon­strates that the de­tainee is as­so­ci­at­ed with oth­er per­sons in­volved in the con­spir­a­cy and that her con­tin­ued lib­er­ty cre­ates a sub­stan­tial risk that plans to car­ry out acts of vi­o­lence against mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment may pro­ceed.”

It added, “These threats, viewed in the con­text of the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency and the sur­round­ing in­tel­li­gence, con­sti­tute a di­rect threat to pub­lic safe­ty and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. A Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der pur­suant to Reg­u­la­tion 14 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026 is nec­es­sary to dis­rupt these plans and pre­vent her from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

What was said in SoE de­bate

Dur­ing the de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the SoE, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment will be go­ing af­ter white-col­lar crim­i­nals and those who fa­cil­i­tate or­gan­ised crime.

He said Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus will now ex­tend to gangs, in­clud­ing those who de­scribe them­selves in per­cent­ages, such as the “one per cent,” which has been used to re­fer to the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in T&T.

“An in­frac­tion of the law by the pow­er­ful and the one per cent is no dif­fer­ent from an in­frac­tion of the law by the poor lit­tle black youths in Mor­vant and Laven­tille. We are not here speak­ing to ac­tion tak­en by our al­lies in the north. We have no con­trol over that,” the AG said in ref­er­ence to cit­i­zens who had their visas re­voked by the US gov­ern­ment, some of whom he said had come to him seek­ing help to get the mat­ter rec­ti­fied.

“What we do have con­trol over, is what our law en­force­ment tells us about some of the ac­tiv­i­ties of these per­sons. The time when they re­ceived the keys to the city and li­cence to mash up the place. That time is over.”

He stressed that such pro­tec­tion no longer ex­ists for some peo­ple, as au­thor­i­ties would act against any­one found to be in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“To those per­sons among us who con­sid­er that their wealth al­lows them guar­an­tees from pros­e­cu­tion and from the at­ten­tion of law en­force­ment bod­ies, we say those days are be­hind us. If you be­have as gang mem­bers do, you shall be treat­ed in ex­act­ly the same way that blue-col­lar gang mem­bers are. If your des­ig­na­tion hap­pens to be with­in the one per cent, it hap­pens to be six, sev­en, or eight, Teteron (prison) awaits.”

Je­re­mie al­so said Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to deal with the con­se­quences that fol­low.

He said, “If you tar­get me, as I ex­pect you will, or my Prime Min­is­ter, as you have, hid­ing be­hind the news­pa­pers you con­trol. If, as our in­tel­li­gence sug­gests, you have in con­tem­pla­tion more and di­rect ac­tion, the in­dig­ni­ty of the cells at Teteron (prison) awaits.”