Derek Achong

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing for­mer de­tainee Ash­meed Choate yes­ter­day with­drew a habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion brought on be­half of Choate in the High Court. How­ev­er, yes­ter­day's ac­tion was mere­ly pro­ce­dur­al as Choate was re­leased on Mon­day evening from de­ten­tion sev­er­al hours be­fore the end of the state of emer­gency. Choate last week was is­sued a de­ten­tion or­der un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions of 2011. The or­der, which was signed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, ex­pired at mid­night on Mon­day. The ap­pli­ca­tion, which was brought by Choate, 56, an Is­lam­ic schol­ar of Craig­nish Road, Princes Town, sought to make au­thor­i­ties jus­ti­fy his de­ten­tion.

Choate's ap­pli­ca­tion was be­fore Jus­tice An­dre des Vi­gnes in the Port-of-Spain High Court, who last week heard le­gal ar­gu­ments on be­half of Choate and the State. He was rep­re­sent­ed by a le­gal team, which in­clud­ed Ravi Ra­j­coomar, Rishi Dass and Faris al Rawi, while Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal and at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la ap­peared on be­half of the State. On Mon­day, a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion filed on be­half of an­oth­er for­mer de­tainee, Khalil Kara­math, of Palm Road, Val­sayn, was dis­missed by High Court Judge David Har­ris. Kara­math was al­so among the 15 de­tainees who were freed at around 7.15 pm on Mon­day from the East­ern De­ten­tion, Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, San­ta Rosa, af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors said their was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to lay crim­i­nal charges against them.

Pe­ti­tions be­fore the Emer­gency Pow­ers Spe­cial Tri­bunal, which al­so sought to chal­lenge Choate and Kara­math's de­ten­tion, al­so were ex­pect­ed to be dis­missed co­in­cid­ing with their re­lease. The pe­ti­tions were heard last week by the tri­bunal's three-mem­ber pan­el, which con­sist­ed of chair­man Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Deb­o­rath Peake, SC and at­tor­ney Ra­j­man­lal Joseph. The tri­bunal was ap­point­ed short­ly af­ter the state of emer­gency on Au­gust 21 by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and was charged with hear­ing ap­peals of per­sons de­tained un­der the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions. To date, the on­ly mat­ters which were brought be­fore the tri­bunal dur­ing the state of emer­gency were that of Choate and Kara­math.