Sascha Wil­son

The son of a po­lice sergeant who was beat­en and false­ly im­pris­oned by po­lice of­fi­cers at the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion has been award­ed $76,000 in dam­ages. Al­though pleased with the out­come of the mat­ter, Aleem Ho­sein, 24, said he was emo­tion­al­ly scarred. "It is some­thing I will al­ways live with. I will nev­er for­get what hap­pened." As a re­sult of the beat­ing Ho­sein, the son of Sgt Jer­ry Ho­sein, is par­tial­ly deaf in his left ear and suf­fers tem­po­rary blind­ness in his left eye. Ho­sein won the as­sault and bat­tery and false im­pris­on­ment law­suit against the State ear­li­er this year, and on Tues­day Mas­ter Mar­garet Mo­hammed award­ed the dam­ages at the San Fer­nan­do High Court. He was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Im­ran Khan.

In his wit­ness state­ment, Ho­sein said on No­vem­ber 26, 2006 around 6.40 pm he was dri­ving along Per­se­ver­ance Main Road in Cou­va. He said an­oth­er car be­gan 'bumper­ing' his car and then slowed down. He said the car pulled along­side him and the front pas­sen­ger point­ed a ma­chine gun at him, curs­ing and de­mand­ing that he stop. Be­liev­ing that they were rob­bers, Ho­sein said he ac­cel­er­at­ed. He said the car then drove in front of him forc­ing him off the road. He said he tried to run but the gun­man walked to­wards him and slapped him across the face.

Ho­sein said he tried to speak but the man slapped him again. He said the man stuck the gun un­der his chin, threat­en­ing to shoot him. He said he was joined by two oth­er men who re­lieved him of $300, re­peat­ed­ly slapped and cuffed him on the chest. Ho­sein said he was or­dered to fol­low them to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion where he was made to sit on a chair while the of­fi­cers played games on a com­put­er. He said af­ter he told them his fa­ther was a po­lice­man, they con­firmed it and then al­lowed him to leave. How­ev­er, he said they threat­ened to kill him if he told his fa­ther what had hap­pened. In the wit­ness state­ment he named the of­fi­cers who as­sault­ed him as Cpl Bob­by Noy­an, PC Balkissoon and PC Thomas.