Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day ex­plained why Cana­di­an YouTu­ber Christo­pher ‘Chris Must List’ Hugh­es was or­dered to be de­port­ed, say­ing it was just po­lice and im­mi­gra­tion work­ing with the laws of the coun­try. 

Asked about Hugh­es’ third ar­rest while at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain for a con­fer­ence, Hinds said he does not ar­rest peo­ple, al­though he wished he could but said that was a mat­ter for the po­lice. 

“I am ad­vised that Chris Must List was charged for sedi­tious ac­tiv­i­ty some time ago. I am ad­vised that he re­turned re­cent­ly to ap­pear in court with re­spect to that mat­ter and I am ad­vised that hav­ing done so, he did not de­part Trinidad and To­ba­go to his home­land Cana­da but de­cid­ed to stay in Trinidad and To­ba­go and con­tin­ued to make the videos of a na­ture that were com­plained of pre­vi­ous­ly and there­fore the po­lice, op­er­at­ing in the pro­tec­tion of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, have act­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go are in op­er­a­tion in those re­gards,” the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter said.  

Hugh­es was or­dered to be re­leased from the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre on Mon­day by High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed. 
As part of his re­lease, the 47-year-old re­port­ed to the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre on Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, to be placed on a su­per­vised list. 

Hugh­es was held on Sep­tem­ber 7 on a de­por­ta­tion or­der, af­ter the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty deemed him an “un­de­sir­able in­hab­i­tant” ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 8 para­graph (q) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act Chap­ter 18:01. 

Hugh­es was freed af­ter at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh, Ger­ald Ramdeen and Vashisht Seep­er­sad filed a ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing the de­por­ta­tion or­der. 

He is cur­rent­ly be­fore the court fac­ing a charge of pub­lish­ing a sedi­tious state­ment, which car­ries a two-year jail term or a $100,000 fine. His mat­ter was ad­journed to Jan­u­ary next year.

The vlog­ger re­turned to T&T on Au­gust 18 for the Au­gust 23 hear­ing and had to lodge his pass­port with the High Court reg­is­trar as part of his bail con­di­tions. On Fri­day, he will ap­pear be­fore Jus­tice In­drani Ce­de­no to vary his bail, which will al­low him to re­gain his pass­port, leave the coun­try and pos­si­bly ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly in Jan­u­ary.