Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 32-year-old moth­er of two from Ch­agua­nas has been re­leased on bail af­ter plead­ing guilty to in­cit­ing vi­o­lence to­wards gov­ern­ment mem­bers in a se­ries of so­cial me­dia posts. 

Alian­na Sama­roo was placed on $50,000 bail as she made her first court ap­pear­ance be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Maris­sa Gomez in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day. 

Al­though Sama­roo, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Shi­va Boodoo and Rosh­ni Balka­ran-Boodoo, ad­mit­ted that she com­mit­ted the of­fence un­der Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions for the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), she was not im­me­di­ate­ly sen­tenced for the crime. 

In­stead, she was grant­ed bail pend­ing sen­tenc­ing and her case was ad­journed to De­cem­ber 18, when Mag­is­trate Gomez is ex­pect­ed to hear the ev­i­dence against her and de­cide on an ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Sama­roo ac­cessed her bail by sign­ing a bail bond af­ter the hear­ing. 

Last week, Sama­roo, who is cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed and goes by the on­line han­dle of Pret­ty Alian­na, re­port­ed­ly post­ed sev­er­al videos on her so­cial me­dia ac­count, al­leged­ly invit­ing vi­o­lence on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment by Venezuela.

Sama­roo, who has two sons, ages sev­en and 11, was ar­rest­ed at her apart­ment at Phyl­lis Lane, Ch­agua­nas, last Tues­day. 

Af­ter be­ing held in cus­tody for two days, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer ap­proved her ex­tend­ed de­ten­tion with­out charge for five ad­di­tion­al days. 

The ex­pi­ra­tion of the ex­ten­sion un­der the reg­u­la­tions co­in­cid­ed with her court ap­pear­ance yes­ter­day. 

Sama­roo was charged with breach­ing reg­u­la­tion 11. 

The reg­u­la­tion makes it an of­fence to en­deav­our, oral­ly or oth­er­wise, to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty. 

The max­i­mum penal­ty for breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions is a $100,000 fine and five years im­pris­on­ment. 

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Sama­roo’s moth­er Eliz­a­beth Vasquez-Ros­ales ex­pressed hope that her daugh­ter would be re­leased and re­unit­ed with her fam­i­ly be­fore Christ­mas. 

Vasquez-Ros­ales made a plea for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene in her daugh­ter’s case as she was un­der the im­pres­sion that her daugh­ter was be­ing held un­der a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der (PDO) un­der the reg­u­la­tions. 

Un­der the reg­u­la­tions, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter is em­pow­ered to is­sue such or­ders against per­sons if he be­lieves such would pre­vent them from act­ing in any man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty. 

The or­ders en­sure that those sub­ject to such would re­main de­tained for the en­tire du­ra­tion of the SoE with­out be­ing charged with a crim­i­nal of­fences. 

Per­sons sub­ject to such or­ders can mount chal­lenges be­fore a three mem­ber re­view tri­bunal. 

While the tri­bunal may make rec­om­men­da­tions on the lift­ing of such or­ders, the min­is­ter is not com­pelled to ac­cept the tri­bunal’s ad­vice. 

Last month, Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Olive Green-Jack was slapped with a PDO af­ter she made a post call­ing on the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment to tar­get Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pri­vate res­i­dence in south Trinidad. 

Al­though her hus­band is­sued a pub­lic apol­o­gy on her be­half, the or­der is yet to be lift­ed and she re­mains un­der de­ten­tion. 

This week, a 48-year-old man was slapped with six crim­i­nal charges for is­su­ing death threats to Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Brown via so­cial me­dia posts.