Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve have launched an­oth­er bid to se­cure their re­lease from de­ten­tion over an al­leged plot to kill key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the cou­ple, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, yes­ter­day filed a pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion last week by Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad to refuse to re­lease them pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of their case, al­leg­ing that they were  tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment based on their eth­nic­i­ty and an on­go­ing le­gal dis­pute over the ter­mi­na­tion of leas­es for State land.  

In the no­tice of ap­peal, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the cou­ple’s lawyers raised over a dozen grounds un­der which they claimed that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad made nu­mer­ous er­rors in re­fus­ing the re­lease from Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs). 

They claimed that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad was wrong to rule that they could be com­pen­sat­ed by the State if they even­tu­al­ly suc­ceed in their sub­stan­tive law­suit. 

“The con­tin­u­ing de­pri­va­tion of lib­er­ty is the par­a­digm of ir­repara­ble harm. Lib­er­ty tak­en can­not af­ter­wards be re­stored. The breach, hav­ing oc­curred, can­not ever be un­done,” they said. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad wrong­ly re­quired the cou­ple to prove that their con­tin­u­ing de­ten­tion was il­le­gal. They claimed that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the State were in­stead re­quired to jus­ti­fy the law­ful­ness of their de­ten­tions. 

“The mis­al­lo­ca­tion of the bur­den caused the Learned Judge to over­state the Re­spon­dents’ prospects and to un­der­state the Ap­pel­lants’, there­by vi­ti­at­ing the as­sess­ment up­on which the re­fusal of in­ter­im re­lief was found­ed,” they said. 

They al­so claimed that he failed to prop­er­ly con­sid­er their al­le­ga­tions of dis­crim­i­na­tion. 

“The Learned Judge erred in law, in his pro­vi­sion­al as­sess­ment of the mer­its, by un­du­ly de­fer­ring to the Min­is­ter, in cir­cum­stances where the Ap­pel­lants had ad­duced cred­i­ble and large­ly un­chal­lenged ev­i­dence that demon­strat­ed that pri­ma fa­cie the ar­rests, de­ten­tions, and PDOs were pro­cured for an im­prop­er pur­pose and in bad faith,” they said. 

They al­so claimed that Jus­tice Seep­er­sad failed to con­sid­er the ev­i­dence they pre­sent­ed over the con­di­tions of their de­ten­tion at the Gold­en Grove State Prison in Arou­ca. 

The cou­ple’s lawyers re­quest­ed that the ap­peal be deemed ur­gent and sug­gest­ed that it should be heard on an ex­pe­dit­ed ba­sis be­fore Ju­ly 27. 

The Hadeeds and a 69-year-old rel­a­tive, Star Sab­ga, were de­tained two weeks ago as po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants at their homes and of­fices.

The war­rants in­di­cat­ed that they were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der.

The PDOs, which would re­main in place while the SoE re­mains in ef­fect un­til mid-Sep­tem­ber, stat­ed that they were be­ing de­tained over an al­leged plot to mur­der Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and MPs. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­fused their in­ter­im re­lease but grant­ed them leave to pur­sue a sub­stan­tive case. 

“While the court ap­pre­ci­ates the dis­tress from de­ten­tion, it does hold the view that there may be greater harm if they are re­leased and the in­tel­li­gence up­on which the po­lice and min­is­ter act­ed proves to be true,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad added.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so grant­ed their re­quest for the sub­stan­tive case to be de­ter­mined by an­oth­er judge based on his pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment of their case. 

In the sub­stan­tive case, the cou­ple’s lawyers did not on­ly chal­lenge their de­ten­tions based on PDOs un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions (EPR) for the SoE, they al­so claimed that the move by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­tend the SoE, last month, was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as it sought to tar­get mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty, a mi­nor­i­ty eth­nic group, and Hadeed per­son­al­ly.  

They ex­ten­sive­ly quot­ed state­ments made by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, in the SoE ex­ten­sion de­bate in Par­lia­ment, in which he re­peat­ed­ly de­scribed mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty as “the one per cent” and ac­cused them of be­ing fi­nanciers of the now-Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and of steal­ing state land. 

They sug­gest­ed that Je­re­mie was re­fer­ring di­rect­ly to Hadeed as the al­le­ga­tion arose af­ter he pub­licly crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in March and af­ter the Cab­i­net sought to uni­lat­er­al­ly ter­mi­nate leas­es to State land held by his com­pa­ny in May. 

They point­ed out that the cou­ple and their rel­a­tive were on­ly ar­rest­ed based on “in­tel­li­gence” pur­port­ed­ly gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) through in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, a day af­ter Hadeed threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over the ter­mi­nat­ed leas­es. 

Stat­ing that their de­ten­tions were un­rea­son­able and taint­ed by bad faith, their lawyers point­ed out that the TTPS could have used less dra­con­ian meth­ods to in­ves­ti­gate them if there was any cred­i­ble ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing, which they firm­ly de­nied. 

“There is no and can be no ev­i­dence of any plot by the Claimants to mur­der any per­son be­cause there was no such plot. There is no ba­sis for con­clud­ing that there was any ev­i­dence of any threat, re­al or per­ceived, against any pub­lic of­fi­cial,” they said. 

Through the law­suit, the Hadeeds are seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions, in­clud­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the SoE ex­ten­sion and their de­ten­tions un­der PDOs. 

They are al­so claim­ing that over a dozen of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached. They are al­so seek­ing fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion. 

The Hadeeds are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus, and Car­lon McLeod. 

The AG’s Of­fice has re­tained British King’s Coun­sel Sir James Ead­ie and Robert Strang to rep­re­sent the State along­side at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen.