Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State is set to pay com­pen­sa­tion to the moth­er of a mur­der vic­tim, who was ar­rest­ed and de­tained with­out be­ing charged over a two-week pe­ri­od in 2019, be­fore his even­tu­al death years lat­er.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment case brought by Daniel Samuel Ri­ley was set­tled be­fore Jus­tice Christo­pher Sieuc­hand on Thurs­day, as the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al en­tered a con­sent or­der ac­cept­ing li­a­bil­i­ty.

The ex­act terms of the set­tle­ment were with­held due to con­cerns that Ri­ley’s moth­er would be tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, on Oc­to­ber 30, 2019, Ri­ley, of Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, was at his home with a group of friends when a group of po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant.

Al­though the of­fi­cers did not find any­thing il­le­gal while con­duct­ing a search of the prop­er­ty, Ri­ley was still ar­rest­ed.

He was de­tained at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion for al­most two days be­fore be­ing re­leased with­out be­ing charged.

On No­vem­ber 14, 2019, po­lice of­fi­cers raid­ed Ri­ley’s home for a sec­ond time.

They de­tained him for en­quiries about an al­leged rob­bery at a guest house near his home.

Ri­ley was re­turned to the po­lice sta­tion, where he claimed he was held in an un­san­i­tary hold­ing cell once again.

He com­plained of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing chest pains and was even­tu­al­ly tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, where he re­ceived treat­ment for a chest in­fec­tion.

Ri­ley was placed on sev­er­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades and was re­leased af­ter the rob­bery vic­tims did not iden­ti­fy him.

In his law­suit, Ri­ley’s lawyers, Amit Ma­habir and Car­olyn Seep­er­sad, claimed that his two ar­rests were un­law­ful, un­just, and op­pres­sive.

“With re­spect to both the first de­ten­tion and the sec­ond de­ten­tion of the claimant, nei­ther the po­lice of­fi­cers nor the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and his agents had rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest the claimant, as he did not com­mit any of­fence,” they said.

“As a re­sult of the said ac­tions of the po­lice of­fi­cers, the claimant’s lib­er­ty was re­strained, and he suf­fered loss and dam­age,” they added.

In its de­fence, the AG’s Of­fice de­nied any wrong­do­ing by the of­fi­cers. It de­nied that the cells he was de­tained in were un­san­i­tary and claimed that he was de­tained the sec­ond time be­cause the al­leged rob­bery vic­tims iden­ti­fied him, by name, as one of their at­tack­ers.

In April 2023, Ri­ley was shot and killed at his home.

Ri­ley and his preg­nant teenage girl­friend were sleep­ing when gun­men broke in and shot them sev­er­al times. His girl­friend sur­vived the at­tack.

Ri­ley’s moth­er was per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue the case on her son’s be­half and will now col­lect the com­pen­sa­tion.

Jayan­ti Teeluck­d­har­ry and Fazana Ali rep­re­sent­ed the AG’s of­fice.