JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

De­fence at­tor­ney Criston J Williams is call­ing for the ap­point­ment of an in­spec­tor of pris­ons to in­de­pen­dent­ly in­spect the prison at Teteron Bar­racks.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Williams said some of his clients are not al­lowed to prac­tice their faith.

“Clean­li­ness is such a big is­sue. And not hav­ing any shav­ing ma­chines or shav­ing sets or one shaver giv­en in eight months, and the con­di­tions that they are be­ing forced to en­dure, go against fun­da­men­tal Is­lam­ic prac­tices. I dare say, this should touch and con­cern all Mus­lims of T&T.”

Williams said what his clients are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing may be ex­tend­ed to oth­er Mus­lims and called on the var­i­ous groups to de­mand bet­ter treat­ment of their mem­bers. He said one Is­lam­ic group wrote to act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde on the mat­ter and is await­ing a re­sponse.

“We are still con­cerned as to who ac­tu­al­ly con­trols that place down there that they are be­ing housed in. I’m pret­ty sure that a com­mis­sion­er of pris­ons can­not just pick up him­self and en­ter those premis­es. He needs to make an ap­point­ment, get per­mis­sion from the guards be­fore he can ac­tu­al­ly go to where those per­sons are be­ing held. There­fore, it doesn’t ap­pear as though the com­mis­sion­er has any re­al con­trol over those premis­es. Nor is there an in­spec­tor of pris­ons, a very im­por­tant post, who could come and see that any ac­cu­sa­tions that the per­son is mak­ing down there are not true.”

He called on the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and act­ing com­mis­sion­er Forde to re­spond to the con­cerns raised.

Calls and mes­sages to the pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, Is­rael Khan, and Forde went unan­swered. LATT’s pres­i­dent, Lynette See­baran-Suite, ad­vised that the CBA may be the best en­ti­ty to com­ment on the mat­ter.

Williams added that he is most­ly con­cerned that there are no client/at­tor­ney priv­i­leges at Teteron Bar­racks.

“What re­al­ly con­cerns me, and I think that it re­al­ly should con­cern each and every at­tor­ney that prac­tices crim­i­nal law, is that ba­si­cal­ly there is no at­tor­ney-client priv­i­lege down at that place.

“When you go down there, well, of course, you are blind­fold­ed to reach this mil­i­tary site. There are armed guards in the room al­so, ba­si­cal­ly, with­in hear­ing dis­tance.”

The bar­racks were de­clared a prison dur­ing the last State of Emer­gency af­ter in­mates from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison were trans­ferred there to pre­vent them from con­tact­ing the out­side world.