Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Cana­di­an YouTu­ber Christo­pher “Chris Must List” Hugh­es is as­sur­ing he will ho­n­our his bail con­di­tions and not ab­scond T&T, telling Guardian Me­dia that he wants to have his name cleared.

This af­ter Hugh­es was yes­ter­day grant­ed per­mis­sion to leave the coun­try and re­turn for his next court ap­pear­ance next week.

Hugh­es, who wore a black t-shirt with the print “FREE­DOM IS A MUST”, took to so­cial me­dia af­ter his vir­tu­al court hear­ing on a sedi­tion charge, say­ing he will not leave the coun­try un­til af­ter his court date next week.

In a sub­se­quent in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Hugh­es said he in­tends to shoot more con­tent in his time here, in­clud­ing his at­ten­dance at a reg­gae con­cert to­mor­row.

“Yes, I told you all the news to­day, court was spec­tac­u­lar just as planned. I told you that my pass­port is good and I’m able to trav­el, but, and there is a big but, I do want to get home to my fam­i­ly, I can’t wait, but I’m not leav­ing yet,” he said.

“I’m go­ing to re­main here in Trinidad un­til my next hear­ing which is next Thurs­day. So, I will be here film­ing on the streets of the beau­ti­ful cap­i­tal. I’m not leav­ing yet; I am here for now. Trinidad to the world.”

The 45-year-old is charged with pub­lish­ing a sedi­tious state­ment on May 29. He was grant­ed $100,000 bail on Mon­day when he first ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Mar­garet Sookraj-Goswa­mi.

Yes­ter­day, Hugh­es plead­ed not guilty to the of­fence af­ter the state agreed to a sum­ma­ry tri­al. If found guilty, he faces a max­i­mum sen­tence of a $3,000 fine or two years im­pris­on­ment. The case was al­so trans­ferred to be heard by a dis­trict mag­is­trate on June 13.

Asked if the fi­nan­cial bur­den of a trip back and for his mat­ter was an is­sue, Hugh­es, who start­ed a Go­FundMe ac­count to raise $15,000 Cana­di­an (TT$73,626) to pay his le­gal fees, said it is not about the mon­ey.

“I can’t wait for the day when I hear I am in­no­cent. All mon­ey aside, I will be able to pay. This is about much more than mon­ey at this point.”

For those who be­lieve he will not re­turn, Hugh­es added, “I will ac­cept your apol­o­gy on the next court date. I will be back; this is some­thing that I am ready to fight for. I am in­no­cent, I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to plead guilty and I ob­vi­ous­ly did not. There is no ques­tion I will be back.”

When he re-ap­peared in court vir­tu­al­ly yes­ter­day, Hugh­es’ at­tor­ney Pamela El­der, SC, asked that his pass­port be re­turned and that the re­port­ing con­di­tions to the West End Po­lice Sta­tion be lift­ed.

State at­tor­ney Danielle John­son ob­ject­ed to both re­quests, say­ing to grant him per­mis­sion to come and go would be pre­ma­ture. She added that since the mat­ter was just trans­ferred to the dis­trict court, there was no time­line for the mat­ter and as such, he should not be al­lowed to come and go as he pleas­es. She said it would not be un­rea­son­able for him to re­port to the po­lice sta­tion while he is in the coun­try.

In re­sponse, El­der said Hugh­es want­ed to leave to at­tend to his fam­i­ly and he should be trust­ed to re­turn. She said she de­fend­ed oth­er for­eign­ers, name­ly US cit­i­zens Ronald Birk and Ed­uar­do Hill­man in the Pi­ar­co Air­port In­quiry, which in­volved hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars, and the ac­cused were al­lowed to leave and re­turn to the coun­try for their court mat­ters.

Hugh­es, she said, was stay­ing at his for­mer at­tor­ney Criston Williams’ res­i­dence thanks to the “milk of hu­man kind­ness,” and asked that her client be al­lowed to put things in place with his fam­i­ly and re­turn in a “show of good faith.”

As it re­lates to the timetable, El­der sub­mit­ted that this was pre­cise­ly why her client should be al­lowed to leave, since there was no de­fin­i­tive pe­ri­od for the mat­ter to con­clude.

Hugh­es’ good char­ac­ter was sup­port­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, who is al­so rep­re­sent­ing the vlog­ger. Ram­lo­gan said on the pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sion that Hugh­es on­ly had a dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence mat­ter. This was con­firmed, as the State said the In­ter­pol record re­flect­ed this. Ram­lo­gan used that as a tes­ta­ment of Hugh­es’ cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Sookraj-Goswa­mi or­dered that Hugh­es’ pass­port, which was lodged with the court reg­is­trar, be re-lodged with the court on his re­turn.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, re­tired se­nior mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na-Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan said Hugh­es be­ing al­lowed to come and go was noth­ing new in court pro­ce­dure. She said dur­ing her tenure, she would have placed re­port­ing con­di­tions on the for­eign­er to re­port to the po­lice in their home dis­trict, which would have had to be pre­sent­ed to the court on their next ap­pear­ances.

Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan added that in any event, Hugh­es can ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly and may not need to re­turn, un­less specif­i­cal­ly or­dered by the dis­trict mag­is­trate to do so.