The sol­dier de­tained for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with Mon­day’s fa­tal rob­bery at­tack at Pen­ny­wise Plaza, in La Ro­maine, has filed writ of habeas cor­pus.

At­tor­neys from CJ Williams and Com­pa­ny sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob on Wednes­day.

The sol­dier is at­tached to Camp Serette Army base in La Ro­maine.

He was de­tained by po­lice of­fi­cers af­ter re­port­ing that six men with ri­fles held him up at gun­point and stole his ve­hi­cle.

The eight-page doc­u­ment, which was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, said the claimant’s cur­rent de­ten­tion is ar­bi­trary and not in keep­ing with the rel­e­vant ju­di­cial learn­ing.

It said there is no pow­er to hold him, mere­ly for ques­tion­ing.

The writ is al­so al­so seek­ing an al­ter­na­tive to de­ten­tion—that he may be re­leased in­to the cus­tody of the T&T Reg­i­ment—fa­cil­i­tat­ing any fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

His lawyers’ claim is that he is be­ing un­law­ful­ly de­tained by of­fi­cers of the TTPS.

The writ added that he has been de­tained for over 26 hours as he was ar­rest­ed when he was not per­mit­ted to leave the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion and to date, he has not been charged with any of­fence.

In the ap­pli­ca­tion, his lawyers are al­so con­tend­ing that their client is not to be un­law­ful­ly in­car­cer­at­ed.

The lawyers are ask­ing that the sol­dier be re­leased forth­with and should he not be re­leased “we ask to be pro­vid­ed with the le­gal rea­sons for the de­ci­sion hav­ing re­gard to the fact that a rea­son­able al­ter­na­tive to de­ten­tion ex­ists.

Re­spond­ing to the writ, at­tor­ney Tson­ja Gaye, le­gal of­fi­cer for the TTPS said, “I ad­vise that your client’s mat­ter is re­ceiv­ing the nec­es­sary at­ten­tion. Nonethe­less, it is clear from your own as­ser­tions that your client is ful­ly aware of the rea­sons for his de­ten­tion.

“Your client is be­ing held rel­a­tive to a re­port of ‘a lar­ce­ny and shoot­ing which took place on even date’.

“We do un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate duct of your mat­ters, this may be per­ceived as in­tim­i­da­tion and you must be re­mind­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers must be al­lowed the free op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ves­ti­gate and prop­er­ly ad­vance such in­ves­ti­ga­tions with­out un­nec­es­sary haste in or­der to re­duce er­ror and en­sure fair­ness to all par­ties.”

Gaye’s re­sponse to the lawyers added, “It should be not­ed that the in­stant mat­ter is still with­in the com­mon law guide­lines at this time since on­ly ap­prox­i­mate­ly 33 hours have elapsed since your client has been in po­lice cus­tody, and on­ly nine hours elapsed be­fore you served the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice with your pre-ac­tion let­ter. Con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en to all ef­forts be­ing made to treat this mat­ter with a sense of ur­gency. That is to say, your client’s de­ten­tion con­tin­ues to be rea­son­able and jus­ti­fi­able in this sit­u­a­tion.”

Po­lice have al­so de­tained two oth­er sus­pects in con­nec­tion with the dead­ly rob­bery.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have con­firmed that apart from the three de­tained men, no one else is in cus­tody.