An­na-Lisa Paul

Sev­en days af­ter be­ing de­tained in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping and sus­pect­ed mur­der of a Mal­oney man, an act­ing po­lice in­spec­tor was freed af­ter Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled yes­ter­day that it was un­law­ful to de­tain him any longer as no charges had been laid against him.Three Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cers who were al­so de­tained in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to last night.

The act­ing in­spec­tor of Barataria walked out of the Port-of-Spain High Court around 5 pm, ac­com­pa­nied by his at­tor­neys Lar­ry Williams, Gideon Mc Mas­ter and Mansergh Grif­fith.The se­nior of­fi­cer who has 23 years' ser­vice was de­tained on March 15 along with the three SRPs. The four were last as­signed to the San Juan Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

A writ of habeas cor­pus was filed yes­ter­day on the in­spec­tor's be­half. Rep­re­sent­ing the State was Paul Isaac, who ob­ject­ed to the ap­pli­ca­tion on the grounds that a body found around 12.30 pm in Mal­oney yes­ter­day was be­lieved to be that of the vic­tim.In­sp Curt Si­mon of the Homi­cide Bu­reau, Arou­ca, tes­ti­fied that po­lice strong­ly sus­pect­ed the body was that of John­ny Noel, 32, of Build­ing 16, Mal­oney Gar­dens.

Si­mon said in­for­ma­tion re­ceived on March 11 in­di­cat­ed four men had kid­napped Noel who re­mains miss­ing.Isaac de­scribed the dis­cov­ery of Noel's body as "a dra­mat­ic de­vel­op­ment" which had set cer­tain things in mo­tion.Re­ject­ing this ar­gu­ment, Williams said it was "un­rea­son­able and un­just "for his client's lib­er­ty to con­tin­ue to be re­strained, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions were still on­go­ing.

He said the po­lice could re­lease his client, and lat­er re-ar­rest him if they had ev­i­dence link­ing him to any crime. Ques­tion­ing the po­lice jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for de­tain­ing his client over the last sev­en days, Williams said no iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades had been held and it was un­fair to keep him de­tained while foren­sic tests were be­ing con­duct­ed.

Pre­sent­ing the court with some au­thor­i­ties to con­sid­er, Isaac ap­pealed to the judge. "Se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions are be­ing made," he said and claimed on this ba­sis the act­ing in­spec­tor's con­tin­ued de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary.

Si­mon said based on ev­i­dence un­earthed thus far, a pri­ma fa­cie case had been out made against the act­ing in­spec­tor. Task­ing a 15-minute re­cess to con­sid­er the facts and ev­i­dence, Ram­per­sad ruled it was un­law­ful to con­tin­ue the de­ten­tion and or­dered that the act­ing in­spec­tor should be freed. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing led by ACP Wayne Dick and Snr Supt David Abra­ham.