Derek Achong

His­to­ry was cre­at­ed yes­ter­day when 32 Port-of-Spain res­i­dents be­came the first per­sons to ap­pear in court charged with be­ing gang mem­bers un­der the re­cent­ly-passed An­ti-Gang Act. Two groups, who live on Nel­son, George and Pic­ton Streets, Port-of-Spain, plead­ed not guilty when they ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ayres-Cae­sar in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate Court. It was al­leged that the res­i­dents, who ranged in ages from 16 to 66 years old, were part of the "Nel­son Street Gang" and the "Pic­ton Street Gang".

They were charged un­der Sec­tion 5 (1) (a) of the act which makes it an of­fence to be part of a gang in T&T, pun­ish­able by a max­i­mum of 10 years in prison. The An­ti-Gang Act was passed in Par­lia­ment on May 3, this year. Ac­cord­ing to the Bail (Amend­ment) Act, per­sons charged with gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties are not al­lowed bail for 120 days af­ter be­ing charged. One group in­clud­ed Ger­rad Samuel, Derek Miller, Stan­ley Guer­ra, Jabari Mar­tinez, At­i­ba Gawk­ing, Ka­reem My­ers, Jules Elig­da, An­tho­ny Arm­strong, Akiel Ash, New­ton Pol­lard, Sim­ba Cobus, Reynold Cob­ham, Christo­pher Richard­son and Akiel Joseph, all of Nel­son and George Streets, Port-of-Spain.

Den­niel Jardin, Man­de­lo Ma­son, Au­gus­tus Quam­i­na, Ameen De­bar­ri, John De­bar­ri, Clin­ton De­bar­ri, De­on De­bar­ri, Nigel De­bar­ri, Michael Moses and a woman Abi­da De­bar­ri, all of Pic­ton Street, Port-of-Spain, were charged sep­a­rate­ly. They were ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Besson Street CID dur­ing ex­er­cis­es on Tues­day and Wednes­day. At­tor­ney Ian Brooks, who rep­re­sent­ed one of the ac­cused, de­mand­ed that pros­e­cu­tion dis­close all ev­i­dence against his client and claimed the po­lice had no ev­i­dence his client was in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Brooks said: "I will like any in­ter­views, af­fi­davits, video footage or tele­phone records that show my client is a gang mem­ber." Brooks al­so asked Ayres-Cae­sar for the mat­ter to be ex­pe­dit­ed as his client was be­ing de­prived of his free­dom and abil­i­ty to earn a liv­ing.Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Richard Tay­lor as­sured Brooks that dis­clo­sure of the ev­i­dence against the men would be avail­able as soon as pos­si­ble. The group al­so was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Criston J Williams, Naveen Maraj and Nicole Bas­raj. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 5 for those of Nel­son and George Street and Sep­tem­ber 7 for the Pic­ton Street res­i­dents.

An­ti-Gang Act 2011

Sec­tion 5. (1) It is here­by de­clared that gangs are un­law­ful and any per­son

(a) who is a mem­ber of a gang, or,

(b) who, in or­der to gain an un­law­ful ben­e­fit, pro­fess­es to be a gang mem­ber when in fact he is not, whether by telling any­one that he is a gang mem­ber or oth­er­wise sug­gest­ing to any­one that he is a gang mem­ber, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment for ten years and on any sub­se­quent con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to im­pris­on­ment for 20 years.