Derek Achong

A 35-year-old man from Mor­vant, who claims he was kid­napped, beat­en and threat­ened by a group of Coast Guard of­fi­cers for no ap­par­ent rea­son, has sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to sue the De­fence Force.In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Chief of De­fence Staff Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ken­rick Ma­haraj on No­vem­ber 27, Varun De­bideen, the lawyer rep­re­sent­ing Kevin Bartholomew, said his client wished to sue the State for kid­nap­ping, false im­pris­on­ment, as­sault and bat­tery.

De­bideen de­scribed the in­ci­dent as un­war­rant­ed and un­pro­voked and said it caused his client to suf­fer "se­vere loss, pain, dam­age, in­con­ve­nience, men­tal anx­i­ety and hu­mil­i­a­tion.""The ac­tions of these of­fi­cers against (Bartholomew) are vul­gar and rep­re­hen­si­ble to the high­est ex­treme and they can­not be al­lowed to en­gage in these ac­tiv­i­ties un­der the cloak of the State," De­bideen said.

In an in­ter­view at the T&T Guardian of­fice at St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day, Bartholomew said he was ab­duct­ed while stand­ing out­side his moth­er's Sec­ond Cale­do­nia Road, Mor­vant, home on No­vem­ber 14, last year.He said around 7 pm, he was stand­ing on the road in front of the house when a blue pick-up truck, bear­ing a Coast Guard reg­is­tra­tion num­ber, pulled along­side him and four men came out of the ve­hi­cle.

Bartholomew said at first he did not recog­nise any of the men, who were all armed and wear­ing Coast Guard uni­forms."I then re­alised that one of the men from the van was a man he knew. I know him since I small," Bartholomew said.He said the men bun­dled him in­to the van and drove to a des­o­late area off the La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant."They drag me out of the van and start­ed beat­ing me again. One of the men hold me in a head lock and the oth­er held my two hands be­hind my back," Bartholomew said.

He claimed that while he was be­ing re­strained, the man he recog­nised drew a ri­fle and stuck the bar­rel in his mouth."Whilst they had the gun in my mouth they said if I go back to the po­lice sta­tion they would come down, kick down my door and kill me," Bartholomew said.He said he was able to break free from his at­tack­ers af­ter they were star­tled by the head­lights of an on­com­ing car.

"I hap­pen to break loose and start­ed to run down a precipice, through some bush­es and a track to a road where I meet four men lim­ing," Bartholomew said.He said the men gave him a lift to the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion where he re­port­ed the in­ci­dent.Bartholomew said he and his fam­i­ly are fear­ing for their safe­ty, as they be­lieve the of­fi­cers may re­turn be­cause the in­ci­dent was re­port­ed."I al­ways have to watch my back now be­cause they know where I live. I not here for re­venge, I want jus­tice," Bartholomew said.

When con­tact­ed for a re­sponse on Fri­day af­ter­noon, Coast Guard pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lt Com­man­der Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste ac­knowl­edged that the De­fence Force had re­ceived the le­gal let­ter and said his claims were now sub­ject to an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion."He (Bartholomew) has made al­le­ga­tions which are cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing the Coast Guard and the po­lice," Jean-Bap­tiste said.

While he said he did not want to com­ment fur­ther on the le­gal as­pect of Bartholomew's com­plaint he said he was aware of the sit­u­a­tion be­tween him and the man he recog­nised, the Coast Guard of­fi­cer.