Sascha Wil­son

Two men who were de­tained at the Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca for more than a month on gang re­lat­ed charges are claim­ing $6.8 mil­lion from the State. At­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram, act­ing on be­half of Kevin Stu­art, a labour­er, and Ade­sa Hick­son, yes­ter­day sent the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion if the mon­ey was not paid with­in 28 days.

Dat­ed Oc­to­ber 24, the let­ters were sent to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al at Ca­bil­do Cham­bers, St Vin­cent Street, Port of Spain. In the let­ters, Rati­ram in­di­cat­ed that his clients were seek­ing dam­ages for wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment, ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, loss of earn­ings and at­tor­ney fees. Stu­art is claim­ing $3,261,500 while Hick­son is claim­ing $3,580,000.

Both men were ar­rest­ed and charged with be­ing gang mem­bers con­trary to Sec­tion 5 (1) (a) of the An­ti Gang Act, No 10 of 2011. How­ev­er, on Sep­tem­ber 29 the State dis­con­tin­ued pro­ceed­ings against them in the San Fer­nan­do First Mag­is­trate's Court be­fore act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan. They were sub­se­quent­ly re­leased. Stu­art, al­so known as Kevin Stew­art, was ar­rest­ed at his Union Park East, Mara­bel­la home on Au­gust 27. Hick­son was ar­rest­ed at his Hill­crest Av­enue, Tar­o­dale home around 5 am on Au­gust 24.