An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­lief swept through Blue Wa­ters yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter the Court of Ap­peal or­dered the re­lease of the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Do­minic Hadeed, and his wife, Genevieve Hadeed, from cus­tody, with em­ploy­ees de­scrib­ing the de­ci­sion as a wel­come de­vel­op­ment fol­low­ing more than three weeks of un­cer­tain­ty.

But feel­ings of de­spon­den­cy and shock re-emerged last night af­ter em­ploy­ees learnt that the cou­ple would kept in prison.

The cou­ple, who had been de­tained since June 24, will re­main in prison, af­ter a three-mem­ber pan­el over­turned the ear­li­er de­ci­sion of a dif­fer­ent pan­el that the cou­ple should be re­leased from prison and be kept un­der house ar­rest at their home in Bayshore un­der strict con­di­tions in­clud­ing elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing, the sur­ren­der of pass­ports, firearms and com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, in­side the com­pa­ny, staff mem­bers said the rul­ing brought a no­tice­able lift in morale.

One em­ploy­ee with more than a decade at Blue Wa­ters said work­ers had strug­gled emo­tion­al­ly while try­ing to main­tain nor­mal op­er­a­tions.

“The last few weeks have been dif­fi­cult. Peo­ple came to work and did what they had to do, but there was al­ways con­cern in the back­ground. Hear­ing that he is back home with his fam­i­ly brought a sense of re­lief to many of us.”

An­oth­er em­ploy­ee said the un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the de­ten­tion had weighed heav­i­ly on staff, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause Hadeed has long been as­so­ci­at­ed with the com­pa­ny’s growth and de­vel­op­ment.

“We were wor­ried about what was hap­pen­ing and how long it would con­tin­ue. The court’s de­ci­sion gives peo­ple some com­fort while the le­gal process con­tin­ues. Every­one is hop­ing the mat­ter can move for­ward quick­ly.”

A third em­ploy­ee de­scribed the com­pa­ny’s at­mos­phere as no­tice­ably dif­fer­ent af­ter news of the rul­ing emerged.

“You could feel the mood change. There were a lot of con­ver­sa­tions through­out the day. Peo­ple are re­lieved that he has been re­leased from prison and that he will be able to be at home while the case pro­ceeds.”

Busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty re­acts

The ear­li­er vir­tu­al rul­ing was de­liv­ered by Jus­tices of Ap­peal Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er and Joan Charles.

Re­act­ing to the ear­li­er rul­ing, Dr Mahin­dra Ramdeen, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), wel­comed the move to place the cou­ple un­der house ar­rest.

“I can clear­ly see this is a good move to have Mr Hadeed and his wife un­der house ar­rest rel­a­tive to be­ing in prison at this point in time be­cause at this point they haven’t been found guilty of any­thing and hope­ful­ly the mat­ter could be ex­pe­dit­ed in the quick­est pos­si­ble time and let jus­tice run its course,”

Hadeed is a past pres­i­dent of the TTMA.

Al­so re­act­ing to the ear­li­er rul­ing, chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers, Vivek Char­ran, said the or­gan­i­sa­tion would not com­ment on mat­ters still be­fore the courts but stressed the im­por­tance of due process and the rule of law.

“We do not com­ment on mat­ters still be­fore the courts, and we re­spect the le­gal process now un­der­way. Our con­cern, as al­ways, is with the prin­ci­ples that un­der­pin a healthy busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment: due process, the rule of law and the equal and pre­dictable treat­ment of every cit­i­zen and en­ter­prise un­der it. Those prin­ci­ples are what give in­vestors, lo­cal and for­eign, the con­fi­dence to build here.”

Char­ran added that while the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty recog­nis­es the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges and sup­ports law­ful ef­forts to ad­dress them, such ac­tions must pre­serve con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my.

“The State must have the tools nec­es­sary to pro­tect na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, but those pow­ers must al­ways be bal­anced by due process and the rule of law. The re­lease of Mr Hadeed and his wife demon­strates the im­por­tance of strong in­sti­tu­tions and prop­er le­gal over­sight. Ul­ti­mate­ly, con­fi­dence in T&T de­pends on both pub­lic safe­ty and re­spect for in­di­vid­ual rights.”

And, al­so re­act­ing to the ear­li­er rul­ing, pres­i­dent of the T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTI­TOA), Lor­raine Pouchet, said she had con­fi­dence in the de­ci­sion reached by the Court of Ap­peal.
“Let the law take its course. The judges must have thought of this case care­ful­ly and con­sid­ered all op­tions. I per­son­al­ly have con­fi­dence in our courts, es­pe­cial­ly at that lev­el. I am sure they would not have tak­en the de­ci­sion light­ly. If the State does not agree, they have the right to go back.”

The Hadeeds re­main in prison as le­gal pro­ceed­ings con­tin­ue.