Derek Achong

The sons of a re­cent mur­der vic­tim and a Co­corite busi­ness­man were among 60 peo­ple ap­pear­ing yes­ter­day in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court charged un­der the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion. All 60 men were re­mand­ed in cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing in court, in line with the re­cent­ly-passed An­ti-Gang Act and Bail Amend­ment Act. Micky Bab­wah, 33, and his broth­er Dave, 31, both of El So­cor­ro Ex­ten­sion, San Juan, plead­ed not guilty to be­ing mem­bers of a gang and pos­ses­sion a Glock 9 mm firearm for the ben­e­fit of a gang when they ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar. Their fa­ther, Bas­deo "Drag­on" Bab­wah, 58, a watch­man, was killed in his guard booth at a busi­ness place in Chanka Trace, El So­cor­ro Ex­ten­sion, San Juan on Sun­day af­ter­noon.

He was the coun­try's last mur­der vic­tim be­fore the state of emer­gency was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sun­day night. The broth­ers were ar­rest­ed on Tues­day by of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force lead by Sgt Roger Alexan­der and Cpl Sunil Bharath who were con­duct­ing in­quires in­to their fa­ther's death at the time. They were rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Nicole Bas­raj. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 20. Mean­while, Ja­son Lewis, a Co­corite busi­ness­man, plead­ed not guilty be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar af­ter be­ing charged with be­ing a gang leader un­der the An­ti-Gang Act.

It was al­leged that he is the leader of the "Wa­ter Hole Gang" based in Wa­ter Hole, Co­corite. Lewis was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Patrick God­son-Phillip who re­quest­ed from the po­lice any ev­i­dence of his client's in­volve­ment in gang ac­tiv­i­ty. God­son-Phillip said his client's ar­rest and 120 day de­ten­tion be­fore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bail un­der the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion will af­fect his clients, em­ploy­ees and fam­i­ly neg­a­tive­ly. Lewis' mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 20. Al­leged gang mem­bers from Diego Mar­tin, Laven­tille and Co­corite ar­rest­ed dur­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es since last Sun­day al­so ap­peared be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar and were re­mand­ed.

Un­der the Bail (Amend­ment) Act, per­sons charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act for gang re­lat­ed of­fences are de­nied bail for 120 days, af­ter which they may ap­ply for bail to a judge in cham­bers. The ar­rest of and charges against the men at­tract­ed much com­plaint from their at­tor­neys yes­ter­day with many ques­tion­ing the par­tic­u­lars at­tached to each charge. One at­tor­ney ques­tioned why the ex­act gang his client al­leged­ly be­longed to was not in­clud­ed, while an­oth­er re­quest­ed the names of the oth­er mem­bers of the gang his client was ac­cused of be­ing a part.