Derek Achong

Busi­ness­man Dami­an Laing has been re­leased on $100,000 bail af­ter mak­ing his first court ap­pear­ance for al­leged­ly trans­fer­ring his li­censed firearm to his dri­ver. 

Laing, 43, from Palmiste, San Fer­nan­do, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Op­er­a­tion and In­tel­li­gence Unit and South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force dur­ing an op­er­a­tion last Fri­day, but had to be im­me­di­ate­ly hos­pi­talised as he com­plained of feel­ing un­well even pri­or to his de­ten­tion. 

Sources said Laing re­mained ward­ed un­der po­lice guard at the Gulf View Med­ical Com­plex and at­tend­ed the vir­tu­al hear­ing of his case on his hos­pi­tal bed with his at­tor­neys Om Lal­la and Prakash Ra­mad­har by his side on Wednes­day. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Mag­is­trate Armi­na De­onar­i­nesingh did not call on Laing to en­ter a plea to the charge, which was laid in­dictably. He was or­dered to reap­pear in court on Ju­ly 27. 

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit is­sued on Wednes­day, Laing was ar­rest­ed while the of­fi­cers were per­form­ing “ex­ten­sive sur­veil­lance” on a restau­rant at South Park in San Fer­nan­do. 

Po­lice ar­rest­ed 26-year-old dri­ver Bri­an Lendor, who was al­leged­ly found in pos­ses­sion of Laing’s li­censed Smith and Wes­son .380 pis­tol, which was loaded with sev­en rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, and did not have a Firearm User’s Li­cense (FUL) or a Firearm User’s (Em­ploy­ee Cer­tifi­cate). 

Lendor al­so made his court ap­pear­ance for pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion and for re­sist­ing ar­rest on Wednes­day. He plead­ed guilty and was de­nied bail pend­ing his sen­tenc­ing. Lendor is sched­uled to reap­pear in court on Ju­ly 20. 

The TTPS re­lease stat­ed that fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­sult­ed in the seizure of 27 firearms and 800 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion that were al­leged­ly found at the home of a rel­a­tive of one of the ac­cused. How­ev­er, le­gal sources close to the ac­cused men claimed that al­though the firearms were seized, they were all li­censed and cov­ered by FULs grant­ed by the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. 

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Se­nior Supt Win­ches­ter, ASP Jaikaran, In­sp Phillips, and Sgts Williams and Wilkin­son. 

Laing was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Vis­han Gir­war.