TTPS still silent on arrest of Hadeeds

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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Si­lence con­tin­ues to sur­round the ar­rest of Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve and a 69-year-old rel­a­tive by law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties, who are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cou­ple for rea­sons they have not made pub­lic.

For a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day since they were ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day, po­lice of­fi­cials yes­ter­day re­fused to re­spond to ques­tions by the me­dia on what had led to the cou­ple’s ar­rest af­ter a search of their West­moor­ings home and the fam­i­ly’s Blue Wa­ters Lim­it­ed busi­ness in Trinci­ty.

Their rel­a­tives and friends al­so main­tained their dis­tance yes­ter­day, with even their at­tor­neys, Faris Al-Rawi and Gilbert Pe­tersen, SC, re­fus­ing to an­swer calls.

Hadeed, who is the own­er of Blue Wa­ters Lim­it­ed, along with his wife, were ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day, while the 69-year-old woman was de­tained on Thurs­day.

The three were de­tained by po­lice from the Hadeeds’ res­i­dence at Shore­lands, West­moor­ings.

While sev­er­al the­o­ries con­tin­ue to swirl as to why they were un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, there has been no con­fir­ma­tion from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), about the rea­sons for their de­ten­tions, al­though no charges have been laid.

Re­peat­ed calls to Al-Rawi and Pe­tersen, as well as mes­sages to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that of­fi­cers from a spe­cial­ist unit de­scend­ed on the Hadeeds’ res­i­dence around 5 am, where they ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant and left with a quan­ti­ty of elec­tron­ic de­vices, in­clud­ing lap­tops and cell­phones be­long­ing to the cou­ple.

An­oth­er search war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed at the Blue Wa­ters fac­to­ry in Trinci­ty lat­er that morn­ing.

Their ar­rest comes 13 days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­dorsed a warn­ing by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie that no seg­ment of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing the so-called “one per cent,” was be­yond the reach of the law.

Re­gard­ing the de­ten­tion of the cou­ple, the TTPS ex­plained that the ex­e­cu­tion of a war­rant was a stan­dard in­ves­tiga­tive pro­ce­dure and does not con­sti­tute a find­ing of wrong­do­ing.

“All ac­tions tak­en by of­fi­cers were con­duct­ed strict­ly with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law, un­der ju­di­cial au­thor­i­ty, and with full re­gard for the rights and rep­u­ta­tion­al in­ter­ests of all per­sons in­volved,” the TTPS said.

The TTPS has al­so urged the pub­lic not to draw any con­clu­sions re­gard­ing the sta­tus of any in­di­vid­ual un­til in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed and any ev­i­dence is prop­er­ly as­sessed in ac­cor­dance with due process.