Derek Achong

The State has been or­dered to pay $310,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael over his wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case in an in­ci­dent in 2017. 

While High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad up­held Ish­mael’s law­suit af­ter the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al failed to de­fend it last Thurs­day, he on­ly as­sessed the com­pen­sa­tion owed to Ish­mael dur­ing a hear­ing on Tues­day.

Seep­er­sad or­dered $80,000 in dam­ages for wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment and $120,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. 

He al­so or­dered $40,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to help de­ter po­lice of­fi­cers from en­gag­ing in sim­i­lar con­duct as in Ish­mael’s case and or­dered that the State com­pen­sate Ish­mael for the $65,000 in le­gal fees he in­curred in de­fend­ing three crim­i­nal charges be­fore they were dis­missed. 

Seep­er­sad not­ed that Ish­mael was on­ly en­ti­tled to $5,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages for be­ing as­sault­ed by a po­lice of­fi­cer up­on his ar­rest, as he point­ed out that he did not pro­vide any med­ical ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate his claims that he was in­jured. 

Seep­er­sad al­so re­ject­ed Ish­mael’s claim for $185,000 in dam­ages for his al­leged loss of earn­ings and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ter his ar­rest. 

“The ev­i­dence he ad­duced in re­la­tion to his al­leged loss is spec­u­la­tive and un­con­vinc­ing,” Seep­er­sad said. 

Ish­mael’s case stemmed from an in­ci­dent that oc­curred when he at­tend­ed a sports and fam­i­ly day at the AS­JA com­pound, Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, in Char­lieville, on April 2, 2017. 

Ish­mael had just got in­to his car and was about to leave when an at­tendee at the event blocked Ish­mael’s SUV with his pick-up truck. 

Ish­mael, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Is­lam­ic Broad­cast Net­work (IBN), claimed the man used abu­sive and threat­en­ing lan­guage to­ward him be­fore he was al­lowed to leave. 

Ish­mael, who is a firearm user’s li­cense (FUL) hold­er, was un­armed at the time of the in­ci­dent. 

Ish­mael made a re­port to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion over the in­ci­dent and the man, who op­posed him, made a re­port sev­er­al days lat­er, in which he al­leged that Ish­mael had threat­ened him with a gun. 

Ish­mael was ar­rest­ed over six months lat­er while he was or­gan­is­ing a peace­ful protest over a de­ci­sion by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to block the en­trance to Barakah Grounds in En­deav­our, Ch­agua­nas, where he op­er­ates his restau­rant. 

Ish­mael was ar­rest­ed by a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, who he (Ish­mael) claimed used abu­sive and ob­scene lan­guage to­wards him and ac­cused him of at­tempt­ing to tar­nish the rep­u­ta­tion of the TTPS. 

He was de­tained in a cell at the po­lice sta­tion overnight be­fore be­ing re­leased af­ter search war­rants were ex­e­cut­ed at his home the fol­low­ing day. 

He was even­tu­al­ly charged with pos­ses­sion of a firearm to en­dan­ger life, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion to en­dan­ger life and as­sault­ing the man. He was grant­ed bail and made nu­mer­ous court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charges were dis­missed af­ter Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion. 

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion, Seep­er­sad not­ed that the “dis­turb­ing and un­ac­cept­able” be­hav­iour of the po­lice of­fi­cers in the case caused him “wor­ry and alarm.” 

“The be­hav­iour which this case high­light­ed sig­nals that im­me­di­ate and dras­tic changes are re­quired as the un­earthed abuse of au­thor­i­ty un­der­mines the foun­da­tion­al tenets of a func­tion­al democ­ra­cy,” he said. 

“The rule of law de­pends heav­i­ly up­on the im­par­tial­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and ef­fi­ca­cy of a po­lice ser­vice whose pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive is to pro­tect, serve and pur­sue the in­ter­est of jus­tice,” he added. 

Seep­er­sad al­so point­ed out that the out­come of the case demon­strat­ed a need for Par­lia­ment to amend the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act to make er­rant of­fi­cers per­son­al­ly bear re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ex­em­plary dam­ages in such cas­es of abuse of pow­er. 

“The rights of cit­i­zens must be pro­tect­ed and tax­pay­ers should not be bur­dened by the con­se­quen­tial judg­ment debts nor should they be ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to pay the salaries of er­rant or com­plic­it po­lice of­fi­cers,” he said. 

Ish­mael was rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams, Shelly-Ann Daniel and Mari­ah Puck­erin. Maria Bel­mar-Williams rep­re­sent­ed the State.

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