An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali are set to file a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion chal­leng­ing the State’s re­in­forced des­ig­na­tion of Teteron Bar­racks and Staubles Bay as prison sites for in­mates.

Dur­ing Tues­day’s de­bate on a mo­tion on the Pris­ons (No 2) Or­der 2025, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said both sites in Ch­aguara­mas, which were ap­proved by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, will now be de­clared pris­ons.

Teteron Bar­racks and Staubles Bay were for­mer­ly used as dis­trict pris­ons and de­ten­tion cen­tres.

Fol­low­ing Tues­day’s de­bate and sub­se­quent de­c­la­ra­tion which was made retroac­tive to Ju­ly 18, the two sites can now be used to house cer­tain pris­on­ers who are on re­mand and not yet con­vict­ed.

Sec­tion 5 (2) of the Pris­ons Act pro­vides that any per­sons sen­tenced on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment (with/with­out hard labour) may be im­pris­oned at the near­est dis­trict prison. Sec­tion 7 of the Pris­ons Act al­lows the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons the pow­er to trans­fer pris­on­ers from any prison at his dis­cre­tion.

Ali, along with sev­er­al oth­er high-pro­file in­mates, were re­lo­cat­ed from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), Arou­ca, in the ear­ly hours of Ju­ly 18 to the mil­i­tary base in Ch­aguara­mas, as one of the first acts un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Ali had al­so pre­vi­ous­ly filed a habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion against the State’s re­fusal to grant his fam­i­ly the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see him at the fa­cil­i­ty, but Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad dis­missed it.

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing which last­ed just over an hour with his at­tor­ney Keron Ramkhal­wan yes­ter­day, Ali ve­he­ment­ly de­nied knowl­edge of and/or be­ing part of any vi­o­lent plot to desta­bilise the coun­try. In ad­di­tion, he dis­missed sev­er­al claims be­ing re­port­ed in pub­lic that he had es­caped le­gal cus­tody.

Mean­while, Ali de­nied hav­ing any knowl­edge of cell phones be­ing found at the mil­i­tary site where he is be­ing kept; or that he is plan­ning or in­volved in or­ches­trat­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of any­one; and had con­tributed to the cre­ation of mass pub­lic fear.

Ramkhal­wan said, “Mr Ali main­tains that he is in­no­cent of any crime and that he is be­ing used, along with oth­er pris­on­ers, as a scape­goat for the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of the SoE.”

Ali’s vir­tu­al meet­ing with Ramkhal­wan was mon­i­tored by prison of­fi­cers yes­ter­day.

Ali is cur­rent­ly on re­mand await­ing tri­al for the mur­der of for­mer pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC. He and nine oth­ers are ac­cused of killing See­ta­hal on May 4, 2014, as she was dri­ving home along Hamil­ton Hold­er Street, Wood­brook.

Ali’s busy day yes­ter­day al­so in­clud­ed an ap­pear­ance be­fore Jus­tice Lisa Singh-Phillip on charges of pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles with­in the prison.

It was al­leged that on June 25, at cell 18 in the East Wing of the MSP, Ali was found in pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles, name­ly one Sam­sung cell phone and one un­brand­ed sim card with­out the law­ful au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, which was con­trary to Sec­tion 8 (1) (f) of the Prison Ser­vice Act, Chap­ter 13:01 as amend­ed by Act 25 of 2019.

Ali is due to reap­pear on Sep­tem­ber 12 in re­la­tion to this mat­ter.