Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter spend­ing al­most three weeks in prison while be­ing probed over an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve have been or­dered re­leased from prison and placed un­der house ar­rest.

How­ev­er, a late-night ap­peal put a hold on the de­ci­sion, as an­oth­er ap­pel­late pan­el agreed to give the State’s lawyers a chance to chal­lenge the rul­ing at the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

Ap­pel­late Judges Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er and Joan Charles made the ini­tial or­der yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, as they up­held the cou­ple’s ap­peal chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad to refuse their in­ter­im re­lease last week.

In their judg­ment yes­ter­day, the ap­peal pan­el said Jus­tice Seep­er­sad could not be fault­ed for giv­ing def­er­ence to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns raised by the State. How­ev­er, they found that he failed to prop­er­ly con­sid­er that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der pro­vid­ed in­suf­fi­cient grounds to war­rant their de­ten­tion un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) for the re­main­der of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), which ends in mid-Sep­tem­ber.

“A con­spir­a­cy to kill se­nior mem­bers of gov­ern­ment re­quires par­tic­u­lars of that con­spir­a­cy in or­der to jus­ti­fy pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion. It is not suf­fi­cient to in­di­cate that the first ap­pel­lant (Hadeed) has the means to car­ry out such a con­spir­a­cy if the con­spir­a­cy it­self has not been iden­ti­fied,” the judges said.

“Hav­ing the means to car­ry out a con­spir­a­cy or plan is not suf­fi­cient grounds for a pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­der,” they added.

The pan­el al­so took is­sue with the fact that Alexan­der re­lied on in­tel­li­gence re­ports from an un­named na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency in the PDOs.

“Vague as­ser­tions, there­fore, of in­tel­li­gence with­out ex­plain­ing how that in­tel­li­gence re­flect­ed the on­go­ing con­spir­a­cy and the de­vel­op­ment of plans, ar­guably did not sat­is­fy the statu­to­ry pre­con­di­tion for the ex­er­cise of the pow­er to is­sue the PDOs,” they said.

“Suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was re­quired to demon­strate com­pli­ance with the statu­to­ry pre­con­di­tions for the ex­er­cise of PDOs and to per­mit de­tained per­sons to at least know the rea­son for that ex­treme and dra­con­ian ex­er­cise of Ex­ec­u­tive pow­er,” they added.

The pan­el al­so re­ject­ed claims that the cou­ple had an al­ter­nate rem­e­dy by chal­leng­ing their PDOs be­fore the SoE Re­view Tri­bunal.

The judges point­ed out that the tri­bunal can on­ly make rec­om­men­da­tions, which are not bind­ing on the min­is­ter.

Not­ing that Alexan­der had re­ject­ed pre­vi­ous rec­om­men­da­tions by the tri­bunal in re­la­tion to oth­er de­tainees, the pan­el said: “The ex­is­tence of the tri­bunal there­fore does not con­sti­tute an ad­e­quate­ly ef­fec­tive al­ter­na­tive rem­e­dy.”

The judges al­so took is­sue with Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s rul­ing that the cou­ple could be fi­nan­cial­ly com­pen­sat­ed if they are even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in their sub­stan­tive le­gal chal­lenge.

“The un­com­pens­able loss to the ap­pel­lants would in­clude their loss of lib­er­ty, their loss of fam­i­ly life, the in­abil­i­ty of the first ap­pel­lant to con­tin­ue treat­ing and mon­i­tor­ing hered­i­tary and chron­ic con­di­tions, as well as mon­i­tor­ing his health for any oc­cur­rence of ma­lig­nan­cy,” they said.

“It is al­so in­dis­putable that both the ap­pel­lants have been sep­a­rat­ed from their chil­dren and that those chil­dren have been de­prived of both their par­ents.”

The judges found that there was a low risk of ir­repara­ble harm if they are re­leased with strict con­di­tions, as the po­lice were free to con­tin­ue their probe and charge them if they gath­ered suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

“The con­cerns of the re­spon­dents can be ad­dressed by re­lease up­on su­per­vi­sion and if or when ev­i­dence is un­cov­ered to sup­port mat­ters al­leged in the PDOs, noth­ing pre­vents charges be­ing laid,” they said.

Un­der the con­di­tions of their re­lease, the cou­ple will be con­fined to their home at Bayshore in West­moor­ings.

They were or­dered to sur­ren­der their pass­ports, firearms and com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices, al­though such items were seized by the po­lice when they were ar­rest­ed three weeks ago.

They were al­so pre­vent­ed from ac­cept­ing vis­i­tors, oth­er than their lawyers and ap­proved med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, un­less ap­proved by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

The cou­ple’s three chil­dren, ages 17, 15 and 12, will have to seek per­mis­sion to vis­it them, as they agreed to move in with their grand­par­ents while the house ar­rest or­der re­mains in ef­fect.

The po­lice were al­so giv­en the pow­er to en­ter their home to con­duct in­spec­tions to en­sure com­pli­ance with the or­ders.

In the event of a breach, their con­di­tion­al re­lease would be re­voked and they would be re­turned to prison.

Af­ter the pan­el ren­dered its de­ci­sion, at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen made an oral ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay to give the State time to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal.

Ramdeen al­so claimed that the TTPS need­ed time to en­sure that the court’s or­der was ef­fec­tive­ly en­forced.

“We can’t ex­pect them to re­turn to their home un­su­per­vised and ex­pect them to obey the or­ders. The premis­es have to be searched; we can­not just take their word for it,” Ramdeen said.

“I am not try­ing to be dif­fi­cult. I just want to give ef­fect to the or­ders,” he added.

Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, who led the cou­ple’s le­gal team, said there was no rea­son for a stay, as the cou­ple would be un­der su­per­vi­sion. He claimed that Ramdeen was free to ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil and seek an ur­gent hear­ing. He al­so said that his clients would help fa­cil­i­tate the po­lice.

“There is a guard booth at the premis­es that the po­lice can take over if they wish to make sure no one comes and goes with­out per­mis­sion,” Mendes said.

The ap­peal pan­el de­clined, as they not­ed that the cou­ple’s con­di­tion­al re­lease had no bear­ing on the ap­peal or the con­tin­u­ing probe in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

“There are no se­ri­ous grounds that if a stay is not grant­ed, the ap­pli­ca­tion (for the ap­peal) would be ren­dered nu­ga­to­ry,” Dean-Ar­mor­er said.

Con­cern over Do­minic’s de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health

In a brief in­ter­view out­side the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain af­ter the rul­ing, the Hadeeds’ oth­er lawyer, Faris Al-Rawi, said he was still not pleased with the favourable out­come.

“I could nev­er be pleased in a sit­u­a­tion like this that is still on­go­ing. When it’s all done, then we’ll have time to re­flect,” Al-Rawi said.

He said he was es­pe­cial­ly con­cerned over his client’s well-be­ing af­ter he en­dured three weeks in harsh prison con­di­tions.

“In par­tic­u­lar, Mr Hadeed’s med­ical con­di­tion has been of great con­cern. He has re­ceived not an ounce of med­ical care while in the State’s cus­tody. We fear that his abil­i­ty to even walk may be com­pro­mised and they have known all of this,” Al-Rawi said.

He said he and his col­leagues ex­pect more le­gal chal­lenges fol­low­ing the Court of Ap­peal’s rul­ing.

He not­ed that they were still pur­su­ing sim­i­lar le­gal ac­tion over the de­ten­tion of the cou­ple’s rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, who was de­tained along­side them.

“She makes cheese for a liv­ing. She rents her ac­com­mo­da­tion, she has no mon­ey to her name, she doesn’t own her apart­ment, she has been in­car­cer­at­ed as well. So, her mat­ter is go­ing on,” Al-Rawi said.

The Hadeeds are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Chase Pe­gus and Car­lon Mc Leod.

The AG’s Of­fice is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Sir James Ead­ie, KC, Robert Strang and Dayadai Har­ri­paul.