Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The lawyer for a prison su­per­vi­sor, de­tained for al­leged­ly as­sist­ing a crim­i­nal gang and its leader, has raised con­cerns over the slow pace of the tri­bunal ap­point­ed to re­view de­ten­tion or­ders un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

At­tor­ney Krys­tal Primus, who is rep­re­sent­ing Garth Gua­da, made the com­plaint in a let­ter to the Re­view Tri­bunal’s chair­man, David Alexan­der, on Mon­day.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Primus ques­tioned the tri­bunal’s de­ci­sion to set Sep­tem­ber 18 for the hear­ing of Gua­da’s re­view and re­quest­ed that it (the hear­ing) be ex­pe­dit­ed.

Primus said, “I un­der­stand the Re­view Tri­bunal’s sched­ule may be busy, but due to the press­ing na­ture of this mat­ter, which would or­di­nar­i­ly form the ba­sis of a writ of habeas cor­pus (an emer­gency ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore the courts), and the se­vere con­se­quences of fur­ther de­lay, I humbly ask for your con­sid­er­a­tion to bring the re­view date for­ward.”

Stat­ing that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der had pro­vid­ed fur­ther in­for­ma­tion to jus­ti­fy his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion, Primus al­so not­ed that she did not need the ad­di­tion­al time to pre­pare for the re­view hear­ing.

“In the cir­cum­stances, it ap­pears both the min­is­ter and the de­fence are ready to pro­ceed on this mat­ter, and it is the re­view tri­bunal that ap­pears to be caus­ing de­lay,” she said.

Primus al­so main­tained that her client’s de­ten­tion is un­law­ful and dis­pro­por­tion­ate.

“To date, Mr Gua­da has not been charged with any crime, and his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion amounts to an abuse of pow­er by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der, which was signed on Au­gust 18 and gazetted last Tues­day, Gua­da, of Mal­abar, Ari­ma, was al­leged to be an as­so­ciate of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang led by al­leged gang leader and mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali.

The or­der against Gua­da stat­ed, “He has been con­firmed to be pro­vid­ing sup­port to oth­er gang lead­ers and mem­bers who are in­car­cer­at­ed in fur­ther­ance of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in, in­volve­ment in or com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the im­mi­nent­ly planned killing of pub­lic of­fi­cials in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles.”

The or­der said as a prison su­per­vi­sor, Gua­da “re­peat­ed­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed the breach of prison se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for the ben­e­fit of the gang mem­bers and has been try­ing to en­gage in fur­ther breach­es at their cur­rent place of in­car­cer­a­tion (Teteron Bar­racks).”

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der against Ali, he is ac­cused of ac­cess­ing “pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles” while at the De­fence Force bases in Ch­aguara­mas.

Gua­da’s de­ten­tion or­der said this sit­u­a­tion made him a se­ri­ous threat to pub­lic safe­ty, and his de­ten­tion at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre was nec­es­sary, as he has shown that he has the means and re­sources “to as­sist in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons to en­gage in gang ac­tiv­i­ty de­spite their present in­car­cer­a­tion and is a threat to the safe­ty of the pub­lic.”

Ac­cord­ing to a 2023 Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty Af­fairs MPow­er bio on Gua­da, the 50-year-old fa­ther of one now has 29 years’ ser­vice. The bio said his ex­pe­ri­ence as a prison of­fi­cer, cou­pled with “street sense”, af­ford­ed him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing about the caus­es and ef­fects of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

Gua­da is the founder of the male men­tor­ship ini­tia­tive Project Up­lift, a pro­gramme of­fered through the reg­is­tered NGO, Panora­ma Gar­dens Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last week, Primus not­ed that her client de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

Primus said, “Every­thing that is con­tained in the de­ten­tion or­der is con­test­ed. That is hearsay and pro­pa­gan­da. They know the truth. Let them come out and tell the truth about what hap­pened at the Teteron Bar­racks.”

She claimed that her client vis­it­ed the makeshift prison fa­cil­i­ty on the in­struc­tions of for­mer act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, who was sent on va­ca­tion leave last month.

“He (Gua­da) was act­ing in ac­cor­dance with his du­ty and was act­ing on or­ders,” Primus said.

She strong­ly chal­lenged claims made in the pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der, as she con­tend­ed that Gua­da served as a dri­ver dur­ing the brief vis­it and stayed in the ve­hi­cle, while his col­leagues, who were se­nior to him, went in­side.

“So there is no way that the min­is­ter ex­pects us to be­lieve that Mr Gua­da went of his own vo­li­tion, walked in­to Teteron past all the se­cu­ri­ty they have in place and hand­ed con­tra­band to the in­mates.

“That is un­be­liev­able,” Primus said.