Geisha Kow­lessar

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says the law must take its course and if there is no ev­i­dence against the 16 de­tainees, then they must be set free. Say­ing that the law must be re­spect­ed at all times, Ram­lo­gan added: "The rule of law must be re­spect­ed at any and all costs and Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to the rule of law. "If there is in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy the lay­ing of charges, then the de­tainees must be set free in ac­cor­dance to law," he said in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so made it clear that the lay­ing of charges was a mat­ter for the po­lice in con­sul­ta­tion with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Asked what charges, if any, were ex­pect­ed to be laid on the de­tainees, Ram­lo­gan said he was not ad­vised whether or not charges would be laid. "But I am not sur­prised be­cause this is not a mat­ter that in­volves the ex­ec­u­tive arm of the State," he said. "It is a mat­ter ex­clu­sive­ly for the po­lice and for the DPP who would ad­vise if and when con­sult­ed." Up to late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the State did not ap­proach DPP Roger Gas­pard to seek ad­vice whether or not charges should be laid against 16 de­tainees. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gas­pard said he was in of­fice up un­til 7 pm and had no con­sul­ta­tion with any one. "No­body has sought my ad­vice in re­la­tion to bring­ing any crim­i­nal charges," he said.

"I'm in my of­fice do­ing my nor­mal work and I have not been con­sult­ed on this mat­ter...No one has opt­ed to have an au­di­ence with me," Gas­pard said. But a se­nior lawyer, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said giv­en the na­ture of the al­le­ga­tions, it would have been "ob­vi­ous­ly ap­pro­pri­ate" for the po­lice to main­tain a close con­nec­tion with the of­fice of the DPP and to seek ad­vice re­gard­ing what na­ture of charges could be laid. The at­tor­ney said in­ves­ti­ga­tors, de­pend­ing on what charges they were pur­su­ing, were not du­ty-bound to con­sult the DPP and could go ahead and lay the charges. On the oth­er hand, how­ev­er, the DPP must give the di­rec­tive to lay cer­tain charges which would in­clude per­jury, sedi­tion and charges re­lat­ing un­der the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act," the at­tor­ney ex­plained.

"These charges can on­ly be sanc­tioned by the DPP," the lawyer added. Gas­pard, how­ev­er, re­it­er­at­ed that in the case of spe­cial pros­e­cu­tors, his of­fice was the sole au­thor­i­ty to pros­e­cute crim­i­nal mat­ters. He said in the event that a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor had to be ap­point­ed out­side the of­fice of the DPP any mat­ter, he (the DPP) was the sole per­son to grant a fi­at to that par­tic­u­lar at­tor­ney or at­tor­neys to pros­e­cute. At­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Khalil Kara­math, Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said the State had found it­self in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion. She said the State went ahead and served or­ders which in­di­cat­ed that the 16 were dan­ger­ous peo­ple who were like­ly to en­dan­ger the lives of the pub­lic.

"So if these are in­deed dan­ger­ous peo­ple, how would the pub­lic be pro­tect­ed on the ex­pi­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency?" El­der said. She added that af­ter de­ten­tion or­ders were ini­tial­ly served on the 16, they were then served with par­tic­u­lars which were sub­se­quent­ly served on Fri­day. De­ten­tion or­ders were slapped on the 16 men for al­leged­ly be­ing in­volved in a plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three se­nior Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters. Oth­ers were iden­ti­fied as al­leged­ly be­ing be­hind a plot to desta­bilise Trinidad and To­ba­go and cause ma­jor pan­ic. The or­ders were made by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy, in ac­cor­dance with para­graph two of the sec­ond sched­ule to the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2011.

The Plot

Par­tic­u­lars for de­ten­tion or­der ob­tained by The Guardian re­gard­ing plot to desta­bilise Trinidad and To­ba­go and cause ma­jor pan­ic:

On Oc­to­ber 28, 2011, an of­fi­cer of the Spe­cial Branch Unit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­ceived cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion from a con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant that there was be­ing planned, a plot to desta­bilise Trinidad and To­ba­go and cause ma­jor pan­ic and that the de­tainee was the mas­ter­mind be­hind the plot. The in­for­ma­tion from the said con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant was that the de­tainee was the leader of a ex­trem­ist Is­lam­ic group which meets at Ch­agua­nas and that the de­tainee reg­u­lar­ly es­pous­es ex­trem­ist and rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic be­liefs at these masjids.

The said con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant al­so said that the de­tainee had re­cruit­ed mem­bers of his re­li­gious group to car­ry out the de­tainee's plan to desta­bilise Trinidad and To­ba­go. On Sep­tem­ber 18, 2011, three men all be­lieved to be mem­bers of the de­tainee's rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic group were ar­rest­ed at Waller­field, af­ter a pe­ri­od of sur­veil­lance con­duct­ed by mem­bers of the Crim­i­nal In­tel­li­gence Unit (CIU). Up­on the ar­rest of cer­tain peo­ple the fol­low­ing items were seized by the po­lice:

• One Glock 17 pis­tol

• 30 round of 0.40 mm am­mu­ni­tion

• 24 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion

• 10 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion

• 6 firearm mag­a­zines

• 1 ri­fle firearm with scope

• 2 bul­let­proof vests

• 2 Po­lice Vel­cro patch­es

• 1 blue sweater re­sem­bling that used by mem­bers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch

• Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force cam­ou­flage jack­et and pants

• 2 stolen ve­hi­cles.

• 1 com­put­er on which was stored an­ti-ter­ror­ist and weapon train­ing ma­te­r­i­al orig­i­nat­ing from the Unit­ed States' Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions and Spe­cial Air Ser­vices

In­for­ma­tion re­ceived from the said con­fi­den­tial source was that a de­tainee was re­spon­si­ble for pur­chas­ing am­mu­ni­tion for the said plot. In 2010, the de­tainee was ar­rest­ed and charged with pos­ses­sion of more than 1,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion af­ter said am­mu­ni­tion was found at his home along with a num­ber of high-pow­ered ri­fles, in­clud­ing AK47 as­sault ri­fles and a large quan­ti­ty of nar­cotics. In­tel­li­gence re­ceived has linked the de­tainee to the im­por­ta­tion of so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons that were ca­pa­ble of long range as­sas­si­na­tion and to­geth­er a cen­tral busi­ness­man whose home was searched and a large cache of high pow­ered ri­fles were re­cent­ly found, is sus­pect­ed in the im­por­ta­tion of such weapons.