The State, via At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, has dis­con­tin­ued its ap­peal against the High Court’s de­ci­sion in the Brent Thomas le­gal mat­ter, paving the way for ne­go­ti­a­tions for a set­tle­ment that will like­ly be in the mil­lions.

The amount is yet to be de­ter­mined and will come fol­low­ing an as­sess­ment of com­pen­sa­tion.

Je­re­mie wrote to Thomas’s at­tor­neys on Tues­day to re­veal that he has in­formed the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al to write to the Court of Ap­peal of his de­ci­sion.

“It is the State’s in­ten­tion to en­ter in­to good faith ne­go­ti­a­tions with Mr Thomas and Spe­cial­ist Shoot­ers Train­ing Cen­tre Lim­it­ed re­gard­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al dam­ages and costs both in the High Court and Court of Ap­peal, in recog­ni­tion of the vi­o­la­tions found by the High Court.

“On be­half of the State, I apol­o­gise for the or­deal that Mr Thomas has en­dured and any rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age caused by these pro­ceed­ings, which the High Court has now de­fin­i­tive­ly found to con­sti­tute an abuse of process,” the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al wrote.

Thomas was ar­rest­ed by heav­i­ly armed Bar­ba­di­an Po­lice in his ho­tel room in Bar­ba­dos on Oc­to­ber 5th.

He was de­tained be­fore be­ing tak­en to the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he was hand­ed over to two Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice of­fi­cers.

He was then tak­en to Trinidad on an air­craft linked to the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices.

Thomas faced sev­en firearm-re­lat­ed charges, in­clud­ing al­leged pos­ses­sion of il­le­gal firearms and ex­plo­sives.

He de­nied the charges, say­ing he had per­mits from the com­mis­sion­er.

In de­fend­ing his client, at­tor­ney Fyard Ho­sein ad­mit­ted that the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er did not have the pow­er to al­low the im­por­ta­tion and pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons, as he point­ed out that his client re­fused to re­ceive the ri­fles and grenades af­ter Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered their re­lease.

He ar­gued that his client should not have been pros­e­cut­ed for the le­gal loop­hole that was used by five po­lice com­mis­sion­ers to get him to sup­ply weapons and am­mu­ni­tion to lo­cal law en­force­ment agen­cies for al­most two decades. 

Ho­sein claimed that the ri­fles and grenades, which he claimed were all list­ed on the FULs held by Thomas and his busi­ness, were kept for demon­stra­tion pur­pos­es.

In No­vem­ber 2022, Thomas sued the State, chal­leng­ing his de­ten­tion and the war­rants ex­e­cut­ed at his home and deal­er­ship.

In April 2023, High Court Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad stayed all the crim­i­nal charges, rul­ing that the war­rants were un­law­ful­ly ob­tained.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, in his rul­ing, stat­ed that the TTPS’ ac­tions stripped away Thomas’s dig­ni­ty and were in­tend­ed to hu­mil­i­ate him.

“These in­ci­dents took place short­ly af­ter the Stan­ley John re­port came out, as men­tioned by ASP Birch in re­la­tion to the grant­i­ng of firearms li­cences by the for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, and it was clear­ly in the pub­lic do­main with re­spect to some sort of im­pro­pri­ety em­a­nat­ing from that tenure.

“One gets the im­pres­sion from the one-point­ed fo­cus that ASP Birch had on these claimants that he was de­ter­mined to find some­thing which could in­crim­i­nate the claimants, notwith­stand­ing the doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence be­fore him. All of the in­for­ma­tion that he was seek­ing was plain­ly ob­vi­ous and avail­able. He was aware that for­mer com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice, not just Mr Grif­fith, had grant­ed the first claimant im­port per­mits and li­cens­es in re­la­tion to au­to­mat­ic weapons and what he termed to be ‘grenades,' Jus­tice Ram­per­sad stat­ed.

The State has con­ced­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers act­ed il­le­gal­ly in their con­tro­ver­sial ar­rest of firearm deal­er Brent Thomas in Bar­ba­dos and his sub­se­quent re­turn to this coun­try in Oc­to­ber 2022.

Two months be­fore his Bar­ba­dos ar­rest, TTPS of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed search war­rants in Trinidad, ar­rest­ing Thomas.

He was re­leased sev­er­al days lat­er af­ter a High Court rul­ing.

The Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty for the role of its of­fi­cials in­volved in Thomas’ ar­rest. 

In Ju­ly 2024, the T&T gov­ern­ment con­ced­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers act­ed il­le­gal­ly in Thomas’s ar­rest and forced re­turn to the coun­try.

That month, High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son ruled that the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, stat­ing that the FIU must pay le­gal costs.