The three po­lice of­fi­cers who have been in po­lice cus­tody for the past five days are now of­fi­cial­ly be­ing de­tained un­der the An­ti-Gang Act and if charged and con­vict­ed can face up to 25 years im­pris­on­ment.

This is the first group of of­fi­cers who have been ar­rest­ed un­der the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion.

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed by po­lice sources that a High Court Judge au­tho­rised the de­ten­tion or­ders for two oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers, one of whom is cur­rent­ly on sus­pen­sion for com­mon as­sault, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The ap­pli­ca­tion was filed on Sun­day by a po­lice sergeant as­signed to the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit (OCINU) and the or­der au­tho­ris­ing de­ten­tion was yes­ter­day grant­ed in the High Court by Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds for the de­ten­tion of the first po­lice of­fi­cer, who is 39 years. He will now be de­tained for a fur­ther pe­ri­od of 11 days un­til March 8. The oth­er two of­fciers will be in cus­tody un­til March 9. The re­spec­tive or­ders will re­main in force un­til fur­ther or­der of the court.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so re­li­ably in­formed that four at­tor­neys are soon to be ques­tioned by the OCINU in con­nec­tion with pos­si­ble links to gang lead­ers and al­leged­ly aid­ing in mon­ey laun­der­ing. This move by po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors has raised con­cerns among sev­er­al at­tor­neys.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, de­fence at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali said if the in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing probe in­to four at­tor­neys was true it is con­cern­ing.

“I await with in­ter­est rev­e­la­tion of the facts sur­round­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. In like man­ner, in no way am I in a po­si­tion to speak to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this prospec­tive/pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion. What I can say is it comes as no sur­prise that the TTPS and its Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) have in­cor­po­rat­ed with­in its fo­cus lawyers,” Ali said.

He ex­plained that the Par­lia­ment as­cent­ed to the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion in May 2018 and a clos­er look at pro­vi­sion 9 a, b, c and d, to him, was “alarm­ing” as the claus­es had been tai­lored, sculp­tured and scribed in such broad terms that lawyers may find them­selves en­trapped and ham­strung in dis­pens­ing le­gal ad­vice.

“In oth­er words, I feel that in dis­cussing what the law says with my clien­tele and how their course of ac­tion may be to their dis­ad­van­tage, that a lawyer may be in­ter­pret­ed to be act­ing with­in the scope of pro­vi­sion 9 (a) (b) (d). I do not think of my­self to be re­act­ing out of some con­text giv­en that the CoP re­cent­ly said in­ter alia that per­sons grant­i­ng bail to those charged be­fore the court ought to look at them­selves in the mir­ror be­fore grant­i­ng bail,” Ali said.

What law says:

An­ti-Gang Act No. 1 of 2018

9. A per­son who know­ing­ly

(a) coun­sels;

(b) gives in­struc­tions or guid­ance to;

© fi­nances in any man­ner; or

(d) oth­er­wise pro­vides sup­port to.

A gang leader, gang mem­ber or gang in fur­ther­ance of its par­tic­i­pa­tion in, in­volve­ment in or com­mis­sion of a gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to im­pris­on­ment for 25 years.