SoE detainee released without charge: My life was destroyed

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Al­though the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has jus­ti­fied the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) by point­ing to re­duc­tions in mur­ders and vi­o­lent crimes, at least one de­tainee who was held dur­ing the last SoE has ac­cused them of de­stroy­ing his life.

Hav­ing been ar­rest­ed on No­vem­ber 24, 2025 and re­leased on Jan­u­ary 31, with­out charge, the man said, “The al­le­ga­tions have com­plete­ly de­stroyed my life.”

“I was ar­rest­ed and treat­ed like a pris­on­er, yet I was nev­er charged with any of­fence.”

De­clin­ing for his name and oc­cu­pa­tion to be pub­lished, fear­ing fur­ther vic­tim­i­sa­tion, the San­gre Grande res­i­dent de­nied be­ing in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

He said, de­spite a search of his home dur­ing which noth­ing il­le­gal was found, he was de­tained on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) and tak­en to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), Gold­en Grove, Pi­ar­co, for the du­ra­tion of his in­car­cer­a­tion.

Re­fer­ring to the prison con­di­tions as in­hu­mane, he said the cells were over­crowd­ed; lacked run­ning wa­ter; were poor­ly ven­ti­lat­ed; and were over­run with cock­roach­es, rats and mos­qui­toes.

“What I went through com­plete­ly broke me down. The phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing is one thing, but the men­tal and psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age re­mains with you,” he said.

The for­mer de­tainee claimed he had been forced to sleep on a met­al bed, which had left him with con­stant back pains and headaches.

The man said he had found him­self sink­ing in­to de­pres­sion whilst in­car­cer­at­ed, his eat­ing habits had now changed and he was suf­fer­ing from anx­i­ety as he lived in con­stant fear that the po­lice could come for him at any time.

The man claimed he had re­cent­ly been re­leased from his bank­ing in­sti­tu­tion, as the al­le­ga­tions con­tin­ued to hang over his head. He lament­ed that the af­ter­math had been worse than ac­tu­al­ly be­ing de­tained.

He stat­ed, “This is just part of what I am go­ing through, the af­ter con­se­quence of hav­ing not been charged and that is the de­struc­tive thing.

“You sent some­one to prison in the ab­sence of any ev­i­dence. I was nev­er giv­en a hear­ing or treat­ed to an ap­pear­ance be­fore a mag­is­trate.”

Ques­tion­ing just how “in­tel­li­gence” had and con­tin­ued to in­flu­ence the ac­tions by the po­lice dur­ing the SoE, he went on, “The re­quest for a PDO is sub­mit­ted to the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who would go based on what is put be­fore him by the po­lice.

“But how is that ad­vice or in­tel­li­gence in­for­ma­tion be­ing gath­ered, when the is­sue of cer­tain­ty to charge re­mains un­clear? Who is the per­son (s) weigh­ing that? If it is so in­tel­li­gence-led, then why are so many per­sons go­ing to the prison and be­ing let off with­out charge?”

The man claimed the sit­u­a­tion had forced him to with­draw from the pub­lic eye as a sim­ple trip to the gro­cery now at­tract­ed un­want­ed at­ten­tion. He added he had al­so been forced to re­duce in­ter­ac­tions with his el­der­ly par­ents and his daugh­ter as he was con­cerned about their safe­ty.

Con­cerned about his safe­ty and that of his fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter two peo­ple he was al­leged­ly con­nect­ed to were killed weeks apart, the man ad­mit­ted, “I am scared.”

“But I can­not hide. Bills need to get paid.”