Val­sayn busi­ness­man Emile Sanowar was charged with the pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion af­ter he was held by po­lice when they raid­ed the Se­cret Sun­day par­ty at La­dy Chan­cel­lor Heights in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day night.

Sanowar was charged by Cor­po­ral Mo­hammed of the Port-of-Spain Task Force late this af­ter­noon at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion and was lat­er tak­en to the Port of Spain Mag­is­trate's Court.

How­ev­er, when po­lice ar­rived at the court with Sanowar close to 4 p.m he was lat­er tak­en down­stairs to be processed.

Se­nior po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia the com­put­er sys­tem to run a crim­i­nal back­ground check on Sanowar was down at the courts.

Businessman Emile Sanowar appears in court to answer charges of possession of a firearm and ammunition following a raid at a house on Ladty Chancellor Road on Monday.

Shirley Bahadur

There was not any mag­is­trate at the court to hear the mat­ter nor was there a jus­tice of the peace present and he was then tak­en back to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion. He is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear to­mor­row be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate to an­swer the charges.

The busi­ness­man's son was re­leased with­out charge.

One oth­er man held dur­ing the Sun­day night raid was charged for the pos­ses­sion of co­caine while the 17 oth­er men were re­leased late Mon­day af­ter­noon.

Dur­ing the raid po­lice al­so found 21 women and a 14-year-old girl.

The teenag­er, po­lice be­lieve, was a vic­tim of hu­man traf­fick­ing and was lat­er placed un­der the pro­tec­tive cus­tody of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit.

The girl and the 18 oth­er women were said to be from Venezuela did not have any form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in their pos­ses­sion.

The oth­er three women were lo­cals.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so re­vealed that the quan­ti­ty of cash seized from a safe in­side the home amount­ed to $21,171.

The mon­ey will be held un­der a de­ten­tion or­der un­til such time the par­ties are called up­on by the court to ex­plain how the funds were ac­quired.

- Mark Bas­sant