Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Chair­man of the Le­gal?Aid Au­thor­i­ty Chat­er­am Sinanan has called for an im­me­di­ate po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged ex­tor­tion in prison. He made the call last Thurs­day af­ter he in­formed act­ing deputy chief mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan that the fam­i­ly of two of his clients re­ceived threat­en­ing phone calls de­mand­ing mon­ey in ex­change for the safe­ty of their rel­a­tives in jail.

Sinanan said rel­a­tives of his client, Chad Ling Chung, 21, re­ceived tele­phone calls say­ing if they did not pay, Ling Chung, who lived in Diego Mar­tin, would be found in prison with his throat slit. Ram­bachan, who ex­pressed alarm, said: "That is ex­tor­tion." Sinanan said he met with Se­nior Supt Lewis about the mat­ter and Lewis said he would in­ves­ti­gate.

He re­quest­ed bail for Ling Chung, who is fac­ing rob­bery charges. Ram­bachan grant­ed him $80,000 bail. He al­so or­dered the ac­cused re­port to the West End Po­lice Sta­tion every Sat­ur­day as a con­di­tion of bail. He will reap­pear in court on Sep­tem­ber 27. Sinanan, speak­ing with re­porters af­ter­wards, said Ling Chung's rel­a­tives wired $2,000 in­to an ac­count, fear­ing for his safe­ty.

"They told the fam­i­ly if the mon­ey is not paid he would be found in the prison with his throat slit. "I had a sim­i­lar case two weeks ago, sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tion. Tele­phone num­bers were sup­plied and this in­for­ma­tion giv­en to the po­lice. The per­son is now on bail. A threat was made. I hope the po­lice will in­ves­ti­gate," he said. He said by next week he will arrange with for his client to give Lewis a state­ment.

Ling Chung is charged with rob­bing Michael By­er on Au­gust 5, at South­ern Main Road, Mara­bel­la, of $60, a $1,500 cell­phone, a na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card, a dri­ver's per­mit and a car val­ued at $45,000.