Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob is us­ing the case of two men who were charged in the fa­tal Pen­ny­wise heist and are now miss­ing as an ex­am­ple of why bail leg­is­la­tion needs to be re­formed in T&T.

“I sin­cere­ly ask that they re­con­sid­er the whole as­pect of bail for vi­o­lent crimes and for gun pos­ses­sion. They should wait 120 days be­fore they are grant­ed bail. I have said that the po­lice are in a bet­ter pos­ses­sion to be able to go on with­in that time be­cause since then we have up­grad­ed our case man­age­ment and case pro­gres­sion unit and we al­so brought back re­tired of­fi­cers with ex­pe­ri­ence in case man­age­ment.

“This is a clear ex­am­ple of what we are talk­ing about. Even with the bail be­ing $3 mil­lion, they were able to get bail and then the con­di­tion that they re­port to the po­lice sta­tion every day,” he told the Sun­day Guardian.

Ja­cob has re­peat­ed­ly called for the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to ex­am­ine a re­vised Bail Bill. The ini­tial bill was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate in Ju­ly.

The Bail (Amend­ment Ex­ten­sion of Du­ra­tion) Bill 2022 al­lowed courts to de­ny bail for 120 days to peo­ple charged with spe­cif­ic of­fences un­der laws per­tain­ing to firearms, gangs, drugs, sex­u­al of­fences, ter­ror­ism and traf­fick­ing in per­sons.

Amid the spi­ralling mur­der rate, a re­vised Bail Bill re­mains un­der con­sid­er­a­tion and is a work in progress.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed this yes­ter­day fol­low­ing act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob’s re­peat­ed calls for the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to ex­am­ine a re­vised Bail Bill. The ini­tial bill was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate in Ju­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the two sus­pects in the Pen­ny­wise case were held the day af­ter the in­ci­dent and sub­se­quent­ly charged with pos­ses­sion of two AR-15 ri­fles, three mag­a­zines, and 38 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

With­out call­ing their names, Ja­cob said three per­sons were charged and two are miss­ing but one is still re­port­ing to the po­lice sta­tion.

“Three per­sons were charged and were in prison. They were grant­ed bail of $3 mil­lion each. By the time the po­lice got ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to charge them, they got bail. It was on con­di­tion that they re­port to the Arou­ca sta­tion every day.

“One per­son had to re­port to Ste Madeleine Po­lice sta­tion and has lived up to the re­quire­ments. The oth­er two are from the Arou­ca area.

“How­ev­er, I would not want to use the word ‘ab­scond­ed.’ I am say­ing that they have failed to live up to the re­quire­ments of the deal where they had to re­port to the sta­tion.

“When the Po­lice looked for them, they did not find them. They are still try­ing to lo­cate these per­sons.”

Ja­cob said that there is a bul­letin that has been sent out to all po­lice sta­tions and pa­trols to look out for these two men and a spe­cial team has been as­signed to lo­cate them.

War­rants in re­la­tion to mur­der and wound­ing charges were ex­pect­ed to be ex­e­cut­ed on them while they were still in cus­tody at prison, hav­ing not yet post­ed the $3 mil­lion bail they were each placed on for the firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences. They how­ev­er post­ed bail last week Wednes­day, be­fore the ex­e­cu­tion of the war­rants.

Keemo Mc­Sween and Ish­mael Salaam were due to reap­pear be­fore a mag­is­trate on De­cem­ber 6. They have been charged with the mur­ders of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art.