DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­man Brent Thomas is among two firearm deal­ers who have suc­ceed­ed in their law­suit chal­leng­ing a re­quest from the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of T&T (FI­UTT) for the dis­clo­sure of their per­son­al fi­nan­cial records. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last week, High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son up­held the ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit brought by Thomas, of Spe­cial­ist Shoot­ers Train­ing Cen­tre, and Hugh Leong Poi, of Sport Out­let Lim­it­ed, against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. 

Jus­tice Robert­son ruled that act­ing FI­UTT Di­rec­tor Nigel Stod­dard act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly when he made sep­a­rate re­quests in re­la­tion to the duo in Oc­to­ber 2022, with­out first re­ceiv­ing a sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tion re­port (STR) or a sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty re­port (SAR) from a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion. 

Jus­tice Robert­son ruled that cer­tain seg­ments of the FIU Act and as­so­ci­at­ed reg­u­la­tions, which ap­peared to al­low for such re­quests in the ab­sence of any ad­verse re­port, breached cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. 

While she not­ed that such leg­is­la­tion was passed by a spe­cial Par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, Jus­tice Robert­son not­ed that the leg­is­la­tion can still be deemed to be un­law­ful if its pro­vi­sions are found not to be rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able. 

“Pro­vi­sions which per­mit the Di­rec­tor of the FIU to is­sue re­quests in the ab­sence of STRs and SARs in­fringe the ad­her­ence to the rule of law and the pro­tec­tion of law pro­vi­sions which are ex­pect­ed in a so­ci­ety with re­spect for the rights and free­doms of oth­ers and are there­fore un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” Jus­tice Robert­son said. 

De­spite her find­ings, Jus­tice Robert­son did re­ject the duo’s chal­lenge to pro­vi­sions of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act and the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act, which gives fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions the pow­er to re­port sus­pect­ed mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing to the FI­UTT. 

She ruled that the pro­vi­sions were not un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. 

Jus­tice Robert­son al­so re­ject­ed the duo’s claim for the re­lease of in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to Stod­dard’s re­quest in re­la­tion to them. 

She not­ed that Stod­dard and oth­er FI­UTT of­fi­cials had a du­ty of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and that the FIU Act and oth­er con­nect­ed leg­is­la­tion make it an of­fence to dis­close de­tails of re­ports made to the FI­UTT and its as­so­ci­at­ed work. 

How­ev­er, she sug­gest­ed that such pro­hi­bi­tion should not ap­ply to court pro­ceed­ings. 

“This Court has de­ter­mined that giv­en the con­sti­tu­tion­al im­pli­ca­tions, Par­lia­ment must ex­press­ly re­strict dis­clo­sure made in court pro­ceed­ings if Par­lia­ment de­ter­mines that such re­stric­tion is nec­es­sary,” Jus­tice Robert­son said. 

As part of her judg­ment, Jus­tice Robert­son is­sued an in­junc­tion re­strain­ing Stod­dard from con­tin­u­ing to pur­sue the dis­clo­sure re­quests with the duo’s fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.

She al­so grant­ed a 28-day stay to give the State time to con­sid­er an ap­peal. 

Last year, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held a sim­i­lar case from for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and his wife Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, which they filed af­ter they re­ceived a tip-off from a whis­tle-blow­er. 

About Brent Thomas and Hugh Leong Poi

Thomas shot in­to the pub­lic spot­light in 2022 af­ter he was charged with pos­ses­sion of three pro­hib­it­ed au­to­mat­ic ri­fles and six non-lethal grenades. 

Thomas filed a law­suit al­leg­ing that he was ab­duct­ed in Bar­ba­dos and il­le­gal­ly de­port­ed by T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) when he went to the coun­try en route to the Unit­ed States to seek med­ical at­ten­tion short­ly af­ter be­ing re­leased from a probe in­to his busi­ness. 

Thomas’ law­suit was up­held by Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, who or­dered com­pen­sa­tion for his ar­rest and de­por­ta­tion and stayed his crim­i­nal case. 

Last week, Ap­pel­late Judges Prakash Moo­sai, Char­maine Pem­ber­ton, and Mi­ra Dean Ar­mor­er re­served their de­ci­sion on the ap­peal over Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s judg­ment. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing of the ap­peal, State at­tor­neys con­ced­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers act­ed il­le­gal­ly in ar­rest­ing Thomas and forcibly re­turn­ing him to Trinidad with­out first en­gag­ing in the ex­tra­di­tion process. 

How­ev­er, they claimed that the judge over­stepped in stop­ping the crim­i­nal charges, which fall un­der the purview of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). 

The ap­peal pan­el has re­served its de­ci­sion to a date to be an­nounced. 

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Leong Poi was joint­ly charged with Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee for con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State of $1.4 mil­lion in tax rev­enue re­lat­ed to the im­por­ta­tion of a Mer­cedes Benz G63 AMG val­ued at over $2 mil­lion. 

Lee al­so faces a sep­a­rate charge of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.