Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid says the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al will even­tu­al­ly pro­vide fur­ther de­tails on ques­tions swirling around the State’s sweep­ing des­ig­na­tion of three ma­jor Mid­dle East­ern or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Nakhid backed the move amid pub­lic ques­tions over how it was rolled out.

“My po­si­tion is al­ways with the Gov­ern­ment,” Nakhid said.

“Peo­ple will make their own judge­ment ei­ther way and the AG will give you the in­for­ma­tion that you need in sub­se­quent time.”

The de­vel­op­ment marks a ma­jor na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty step, with the High Court or­der­ing the im­me­di­ate freez­ing of all Trinidad and To­ba­go as­sets linked to Hezbol­lah, Hamas and Iran’s Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The or­ders, pub­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette on Mon­day, rep­re­sent one of the most far-reach­ing us­es of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act in re­cent years.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gazette, Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in is­sued freez­ing or­ders on April 8 in re­la­tion to both Hezbol­lah and the IRGC. A sep­a­rate or­der is­sued by Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son on April 9 list­ed Hamas as a de­clared en­ti­ty.

The High Court or­ders di­rect­ed that all prop­er­ty owned or con­trolled lo­cal­ly by the three or­gan­i­sa­tions, whether whol­ly, joint­ly, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, must be im­me­di­ate­ly frozen. The mea­sures al­so ex­tend to as­sets that may be held through in­ter­me­di­aries or proxy arrange­ments. How­ev­er, the lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion/s linked to the three groups were redact­ed in the gazetted no­tice.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi large­ly en­dorsed the le­gal frame­work be­hind the move yes­ter­day, not­ing that he helped shape the leg­is­la­tion that al­lows such des­ig­na­tions.

“I draft­ed the law that amend­ed the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act to al­low for the des­ig­na­tion of ter­ror­ists and ter­ror­ist groups. Those are done pur­suant to the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act and Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tions.”

Al-Rawi ex­plained that the process is court-dri­ven and root­ed in in­ter­na­tion­al list­ings. “You have to do an ap­pli­ca­tion to the court. I’ve done hun­dreds of des­ig­na­tions. It was a tool that I thought was very nec­es­sary,” he said.

He added that the sys­tem is al­so crit­i­cal to law en­force­ment.

“The pur­pose of list­ing is so that it’s known in our courts and that you can freeze as­sets and deal with in­di­vid­u­als. Any­thing that pro­tects Trinidad and To­ba­go, we cer­tain­ly sup­port.”

How­ev­er, he warned that des­ig­na­tion alone is not enough to se­cure con­vic­tions, point­ing to gaps in the jus­tice sys­tem.

“What is miss­ing is wit­ness pro­tec­tion, anony­mous wit­ness ev­i­dence, the use of CCTV cam­era ev­i­dence, and the Crown pros­e­cu­tion mod­el,” he said.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sophia Chote raised a dif­fer­ent con­cern, how­ev­er, warn­ing of un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences for hu­man­i­tar­i­an ef­forts by Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“My con­cern is this, that peo­ple who do­nate to char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions for vic­tims of the geno­cide in Gaza and vic­tims of war should not be de­prived be­cause their char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions are con­sid­ered to be ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions,” she said.

Pressed on safe­guards, Chote added, “Well, I don’t know what safe­guards have been put in place but cer­tain­ly vic­tims should not be pe­nalised.”