Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der have re­ject­ed claims that he held im­prop­er meet­ings with gang lead­ers while he served as a po­lice of­fi­cer be­fore leav­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pur­sue a ca­reer in pol­i­tics.

Alexan­der’s le­gal team, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, ad­dressed the al­le­ga­tion made last week by de­tained prison su­per­vi­sor Garth Gua­da, as they sought to re­spond to a le­gal threat made by Gua­da’s lawyer Krys­tal Primus.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, at­tor­ney Jared Ja­groo stat­ed that Gua­da’s claims over Alexan­der’s ad­mit­ted meet­ings were in­ac­cu­rate and mis­lead­ing.

“All vis­its were con­duct­ed law­ful­ly, in his then ca­pac­i­ty as a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, with the knowl­edge and sanc­tion of the TTPS,” Ja­groo said.

“They were un­der­tak­en for the le­git­i­mate pur­pose of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­ter­views with per­sons of in­ter­est in the fight against vi­o­lent crime,” he added.

He sug­gest­ed that Gua­da’s claims over the im­prop­er na­ture of the meet­ings were op­por­tunis­tic and disin­gen­u­ous.

How­ev­er, Ja­groo did not di­rect­ly ad­dress Gua­da’s ad­di­tion­al claim that Alexan­der al­so made vis­its to the prison af­ter leav­ing the TTPS.

Ja­groo al­so re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that Alexan­der’s de­ci­sion to is­sue a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der against Gua­da, for al­leged­ly ren­der­ing as­sis­tance to a gang, was based on a per­son­al vendet­ta be­cause he (Gua­da) re­port­ed the meet­ings to se­nior prison and po­lice of­fi­cers.

Stat­ing that there was no ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate his claims of bias, Ja­groo said: “Al­le­ga­tions of bias, mis­con­duct, or abuse of pow­er are bald as­ser­tions, de­void of par­tic­u­lar­i­ty, and un­sup­port­ed by any con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous record.”

Ja­groo al­so claimed Gua­da’s de­ten­tion com­plied with the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions for the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

“Re­view pro­ce­dures have been fol­lowed, and the Tri­bunal con­tin­ues to ex­er­cise in­de­pen­dent over­sight of your client’s de­ten­tion,” Ja­groo said.

He al­so re­ject­ed Gua­da’s com­plaint over the ad­journ­ment of his chal­lenge to his de­ten­tion be­fore the SoE Re­view Tri­bunal last week. Ja­groo not­ed that the post­pone­ment was due to tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties which re­sult­ed in Gua­da not be­ing able to par­tic­i­pate vir­tu­al­ly.

He al­so point­ed out that Gua­da filed a habeas cor­pus writ chal­leng­ing his de­ten­tion but with­drew it when it came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad.

“This is telling and un­der­mines the cred­i­bil­i­ty of your client’s present com­plaints,” Ja­groo said.

He al­so ac­cused Primus of leak­ing her client’s le­gal threat to the me­dia.

“We there­fore con­sid­er your de­ci­sion to pub­lish same in the me­dia, with full knowl­edge by your client that his al­le­ga­tions were false and mis­lead­ing, and with­out the ben­e­fit of our client’s re­sponse, noth­ing more than an at­tempt to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points on se­ri­ous mat­ters con­cern­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and crime de­tec­tion,” he said.

Ja­groo ad­vised Gua­da against pur­su­ing his pro­posed lit­i­ga­tion but stat­ed that Alexan­der was ready to de­fend such.

“Our client will vig­or­ous­ly de­fend any le­gal pro­ceed­ings brought and re­serves the right to seek costs against your client in the event of a mis­con­ceived claim,” he said.

Alexan­der is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Lemuel Mur­phy and Lester Chari­ah.

In Gua­da’s orig­i­nal le­gal let­ter, Primus, act­ing on his in­struc­tions, claimed Gua­da was tar­get­ed for rais­ing con­cerns over Alexan­der’s vis­its to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison and in­for­ma­tion that was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the TTPS In­tel­li­gence Unit about Alexan­der’s af­fairs.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der, which was signed on Au­gust 18 and gazetted last Tues­day, Gua­da, of Mal­abar, Ari­ma, was al­leged to be an as­so­ciate of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang led by al­leged gang leader and mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali.

The or­der said as a prison su­per­vi­sor, Gua­da “re­peat­ed­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed the breach of prison se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for the ben­e­fit of the gang mem­bers and has been try­ing to en­gage in fur­ther breach­es at their cur­rent place of in­car­cer­a­tion (Teteron Bar­racks).”

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der against Ali, he is ac­cused of ac­cess­ing “pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles” while at the De­fence Force bases in Ch­aguara­mas.

Gua­da’s de­ten­tion or­der said this sit­u­a­tion made him a se­ri­ous threat to pub­lic safe­ty and his de­ten­tion at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre nec­es­sary, as he has shown he has the means and re­sources “to as­sist in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons to en­gage in gang ac­tiv­i­ty de­spite their present in­car­cer­a­tion and is a threat to the safe­ty of the pub­lic.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter her client was de­tained, Primus not­ed that her client de­nied any wrong­do­ing. She claimed Gua­da vis­it­ed the make-shift prison fa­cil­i­ty on the in­struc­tions of for­mer act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, who was sent on va­ca­tion leave last month. She con­tend­ed that Gua­da served as a dri­ver dur­ing the brief vis­it and stayed in the ve­hi­cle, while his col­leagues, who were se­nior to him went in­side.