Sascha?Wil­son

Sus­pend­ed Po­lice Con­sta­ble Valen­tine East­man will have to stand tri­al be­fore a judge and ju­ry on 13 charges of hu­man traf­fick­ing in­volv­ing three Colom­bian women.

As the State closed its case yes­ter­day, Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton com­mit­ted East­man to stand tri­al in the San Fer­nan­do High Court and grant­ed him new bail of $250,000 or a cash al­ter­na­tive of $120,000.

Con­ced­ing that a pri­ma fa­cie case had been made out against his client, at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram did not make a no-case sub­mis­sion.

Rati­ram, how­ev­er, asked for a re­duc­tion in bail and a cash al­ter­na­tive of $30,000, which he said was af­ford­able to his client.

Giv­en the num­ber of charges, how­ev­er, Welling­ton said the cash bail re­quest­ed was too small.

East­man, 55, was the first per­son in T&T to be charged un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act of 2011.

The of­fi­cer, of Princes Town, who was last as­signed to the Mon Re­pos Po­lice Sta­tion and has 25 years ser­vice, was ini­tial­ly re­leased on $350,000 bail af­ter be­ing charged.

The charges in­clud­ed trans­port­ing the women to Vista­bel­la for the pur­pose of ex­ploit­ing them for pros­ti­tu­tion and re­ceiv­ing the women in­to the coun­try or trans­port­ing or har­bour­ing them for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion.

The charges, laid by PC Ram­lo­gan of the An­ti-Hu­man Traf­fick­ing Unit, al­leged­ly took place be­tween March 3 and March 24, 2013.

Each time the mat­ter was heard in the San Fer­nan­do First Court it was held in cam­era.

State at­tor­ney Sarah de Sil­va led ev­i­dence from 16 wit­ness­es dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings which be­gan in Sep­tem­ber 2014.

Two of the vic­tims who are in the Wit­ness Pro­tec­tion Pro­gramme were brought to court yes­ter­day.

As East­man was es­cort­ed from the cour­t­house in hand­cuffs, he used his shirt to cov­er his head.