Basilon Street res­i­dent Aki­do “Sun­day” Williams was de­nied bail yes­ter­day af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate charged with coun­selling a gang leader.

Bail was de­nied be­cause po­lice pro­vid­ed an in­com­plete crim­i­nal record and the mag­is­trate had con­cerns over two rob­bery cas­es from 1998 and 1999, which ap­peared to be pend­ing. Williams, a fa­ther of 10 and an em­ploy­ee of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), was or­dered to reap­pear in court to­day.

Williams, 39, who was be­ing sought by po­lice for ques­tion­ing, turned him­self in to po­lice ear­li­er this month.

Po­lice laid the charge of coun­selling a gang leader in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 9(b) of the An­ti-Gang Act.

The charge was laid on Tues­day by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), fol­low­ing ad­vice re­ceived from As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions George Bus­by.

The ac­cused was ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day 2nd Oc­to­ber 2019, af­ter he sur­ren­dered him­self to SIU of­fi­cers in the pres­ence of his at­tor­ney-at-law.

Williams was at the time con­sid­ered a per­son of in­ter­est by po­lice and the pub­lic was asked to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on his where­abouts.

Sec­tion 9 of the An­ti-Gang Act, No. 1 of 2018 states: A per­son who know­ing­ly—(a) coun­sels; (b) gives in­struc­tion or guid­ance to; (c) 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 twen­ty-five years.

Last month three Beetham res­i­dents were al­so charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act.

Those ac­cused are An­cil Shawn Vil­lafana al­so known as “Chemist” and “Pre­si”; Kevon Isa­iah Franklyn alias “Fat Joe”, both of Beetham Gar­dens, Port-of-Spain and Keedel Fabi­an Mon­trose al­so known as “Feedel”.

The charges were laid by act­ing In­sp Ram­dass of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit.