JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Star Sab­ga, who is al­leged to be the main con­spir­a­tor in a plot to mur­der Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, has made at least three re­quests to be seen by a med­ical doc­tor while un­der house ar­rest at her West­moor­ings apart­ment. How­ev­er, she is yet to get a re­sponse from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro on the mat­ter.

Sab­ga, 70, along with Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve, was placed un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) for al­leged­ly plot­ting to mur­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The Hadeeds lat­er had their PDOs re­voked by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, while High Court Judge Jus­tice Vashiest Kokaram Paul or­dered Sab­ga’s re­lease from the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca to house ar­rest on Ju­ly 27.

In let­ters dat­ed Ju­ly 29, Ju­ly 30 and Au­gust 10, at­tor­ney Car­lon Mc Leod re­quest­ed per­mis­sion from Gue­var­ro for Sab­ga to be ex­am­ined by her physi­cian, Dr Jacque­line Pereira-Sab­ga. The ini­tial re­quest asked that the doc­tor be al­lowed to vis­it at a time con­ve­nient to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Cor­re­spon­dence be­tween Mc Leod and Gue­var­ro shows that be­tween Ju­ly 28 and Au­gust 10, at least three re­quests were made for Dr Pereira-Sab­ga to ex­am­ine her pa­tient.

In a fol­low-up let­ter to his first re­quest, Mc Leod wrote: “More ur­gent­ly, med­ical at­ten­dance. At para­graph 9 of my pre­vi­ous let­ter, I re­quest­ed that Dr Jacque­line Pereira-Sab­ga be per­mit­ted to med­ical­ly ex­am­ine our client at such times as may be nec­es­sary. I have re­ceived no re­sponse to that re­quest. Para­graph 3 of the Or­der of the Ho­n­ourable Mr Jus­tice Paul ex­press­ly con­tem­plates ap­proved med­ical at­ten­dants, and I re­spect­ful­ly say that ap­proval ought not to be with­held where the health of a de­tained per­son is in is­sue.”

Mc Leod al­so stat­ed that, dur­ing a vis­it on Ju­ly 29, Sab­ga told him she was in “se­vere dis­com­fort” and had re­peat­ed­ly re­quest­ed ac­cess to her doc­tor.

“Our client is 70 years of age. Since the com­mence­ment of her de­ten­tion, she has lost ap­prox­i­mate­ly 29 pounds in weight. She suf­fers from con­stant chest pains. She has not been sleep­ing. She has not been med­ical­ly as­sessed at any time since her re­lease in­to su­per­vi­sion at the res­i­dence. Chest pain in a woman of that age, pre­sent­ing to­geth­er with sig­nif­i­cant un­in­tend­ed weight loss, is not a mat­ter up­on which any of us should be con­tent to wait,” he wrote.

The at­tor­ney fur­ther re­quest­ed that any med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion be con­duct­ed in pri­vate and out of earshot of po­lice of­fi­cers, in keep­ing with med­ical con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and dig­ni­ty. He al­so asked that Dr Pereira-Sab­ga be per­mit­ted to take any equip­ment re­quired for the ex­am­i­na­tion and that pre­scribed med­ica­tion be de­liv­ered when­ev­er nec­es­sary, rather than on­ly dur­ing sched­uled meal de­liv­er­ies.

The at­tor­neys sent five let­ters over­all to Gue­var­ro (two oth­ers dealt with vis­its by her le­gal coun­sel), but on­ly one, dat­ed Ju­ly 28, re­ceived a re­sponse. That cor­re­spon­dence sought ap­proval for 11 at­tor­neys to vis­it Sab­ga and for meals to be de­liv­ered to her res­i­dence, sub­ject to in­spec­tion by po­lice of­fi­cers.

Mc Leod stressed that the at­tor­neys would not vis­it “en masse” but would form part of an ap­proved le­gal team han­dling mul­ti­ple court mat­ters aris­ing from Sab­ga’s de­ten­tion.

Gue­var­ro re­ject­ed the re­quest for all 11 at­tor­neys to at­tend, ap­prov­ing on­ly Mc Leod and one al­ter­nate at­tor­ney when re­quired. He not­ed that most of the at­tor­neys list­ed had not pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed Sab­ga while she was de­tained.

The pro­posed le­gal team in­clud­ed Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus, Jerome Ra­j­coomar, Ryan Ra­j­coomar, Dhar­men­dra Pun­wasee, Christo­pher Hadeed and Mona Al-Rawi.

Mc Leod lat­er ex­plained that all the at­tor­neys were need­ed be­cause sev­er­al court mat­ters re­quired af­fi­davits and re­lat­ed ev­i­dence from Sab­ga.

“It fur­ther re­quires the at­ten­dance up­on our client of a com­mis­sion­er of af­fi­davits, and we ac­cord­ing­ly re­quest your ap­proval for the at­ten­dance of Mr Ronal­do Dop­well, Com­mis­sion­er of Af­fi­davits, up­on our client,” he wrote on Au­gust 6.

Re­gard­ing meals, Gue­var­ro ap­proved de­liv­er­ies on­ly at 7 am, noon and 5 pm, cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and the need for of­fi­cers to in­spect items be­fore they reached Sab­ga. He wrote that the arrange­ment al­ready placed an ad­di­tion­al bur­den on TTPS re­sources, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, and called for “a de­gree of rea­son­able­ness” in re­quests made un­der the court or­der.

The at­tor­ney’s fi­nal let­ter, dat­ed Au­gust 10, com­plained that Gue­var­ro had failed to re­spond to any cor­re­spon­dence af­ter Ju­ly 28.

Un­der her house ar­rest con­di­tions, Sab­ga re­mains con­fined to her apart­ment at Re­gent Tow­ers, West­moor­ings, un­der TTPS su­per­vi­sion. She has sur­ren­dered her pass­port, trav­el doc­u­ments and elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices and may leave on­ly for ap­proved med­ical or le­gal ap­point­ments.

Psy­chol­o­gist con­cerned about treat­ment

Psy­chol­o­gist Dr Sean De Mills says the CoP’s re­fusal to al­low Sab­ga a med­ical vis­it may need le­gal in­ter­ven­tion.

Ad­dress­ing the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, De Mills said deny­ing ac­cess to health­care could raise se­ri­ous le­gal and hu­man rights con­cerns.

“I am sur­prised to hear that these pe­ti­tions are be­ing raised re­peat­ed­ly and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, in his wis­dom, has de­cid­ed to ei­ther de­lay ac­cess or not grant it at all,” De Mills said.

“This ought to be some­thing for ju­di­cial re­view. We can­not be a coun­try where, be­cause some­one is ac­cused of some­thing, they are de­nied med­ical treat­ment and ac­cess.”

De Mills al­so warned that pro­longed iso­la­tion could neg­a­tive­ly af­fect both phys­i­cal and men­tal health, par­tic­u­lar­ly for an el­der­ly per­son.

How­ev­er, de­fence at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali took a dif­fer­ent view, not­ing that Sab­ga re­mains in the com­fort of her own home rather than in de­ten­tion.

“Her right to lib­er­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and per­son­al en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty is be­ing ob­served,” Ali said, adding that her ac­cess to le­gal coun­sel sat­is­fies her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. He ar­gued that the con­di­tions of her house ar­rest were ne­go­ti­at­ed through her at­tor­neys and ap­proved by the court.

Res­i­dents of Re­gent Tow­ers mean­while ques­tioned the heavy po­lice pres­ence out­side Sab­ga’s apart­ment, de­scrib­ing it as an in­ef­fi­cient use of po­lice re­sources. They al­so ex­pressed con­cern for the men­tal wel­fare of the el­der­ly woman.