Derek Achong

Six­teen sus­pects de­tained in an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three se­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ters are set for free­dom to­day un­less the State makes a last-ditch ef­fort to slap them with charges. And the win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty is pre­car­i­ous­ly clos­ing in as the State on­ly has mere hours to lay charges against the 16 de­tainees. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are said to be con­sid­er­ing charges un­der the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act or charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit trea­son. The T&T Guardian, how­ev­er, was re­li­ably in­formed that all of the de­tainees had main­tained their in­no­cence through­out their in­ter­ro­ga­tion by po­lice, with some al­so deny­ing knowl­edge of hav­ing pre­vi­ous deal­ings with their fel­low de­tainees.

Apart from the plot to as­sas­si­nate Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, de­ten­tion or­ders were served on those be­lieved to have con­spired to cause pub­lic dis­or­der. Last Fri­day, at a news con­fer­ence at the Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley brand­ed the plot as a "hoax." He claimed he was in pos­ses­sion of a re­port, dat­ed No­vem­ber 23, which was pro­duced by a law en­force­ment an­a­lyst which ques­tioned the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. The doc­u­ment claimed the or­der of events giv­en by of­fi­cials was in­con­sis­tent and that there was very lit­tle ev­i­dence link­ing the de­tainees to the plot.

Row­ley was quot­ed as say­ing that the de­tainees were "now in se­ri­ous jeop­ardy," be­cause the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate need­ed ev­i­dence to keep them in­car­cer­at­ed or charged, to keep it from se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice. The in­for­ma­tion on the al­leged plot, which was sched­uled to take place on No­vem­ber 24, was re­ceived by a po­lice Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cer, late in Oc­to­ber by a con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant. Last week, de­ten­tion or­ders un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions of 2011 were signed for the de­tainees by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy. The de­ten­tion or­ders will ex­pire at mid­night tonight, co­in­cid­ing with the end of the state of emer­gency which was pro­claimed more than three months ago, on Au­gust 21.

Ac­cord­ing to the or­ders, eight of the men have been iden­ti­fied as be­ing in­volved in a plot to as­sas­si­nate Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the min­is­ters with the oth­er be­ing linked to a plot to desta­bilise T&T. The men who were pre­vi­ous­ly be­ing de­tained at the Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca, were, over the week­end, trans­ferred to the East­ern De­ten­tion, Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, San­ta Rosa, which was specif­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed dur­ing the state of emer­gency to house de­tainees. Up to late yes­ter­day, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still seek­ing a busi­ness­man from cen­tral Trinidad who was al­leged­ly in­volved in the im­por­ta­tion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion which were to be used in the al­leged plot.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous search­es at the man's Curepe busi­ness­place and Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas, home, last week, re­sult­ed in the seizure of sev­er­al firearms and a large quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing a high-pow­ered ri­fle and "ar­mour-pierc­ing" am­mu­ni­tion. The man is still "at large," with a 24-year-old rel­a­tive be­ing de­tained by po­lice in an ef­fort to gath­er in­for­ma­tion as to the man's lo­ca­tion. The T&T Guardian, how­ev­er, un­der­stands the man might have fled the coun­try be­fore the plot's ex­po­sure more than two weeks ago.

Facts

Last week, two of the de­tainees- Ash­meed Choate, 56, an Is­lam­ic schol­ar of Princess Town, and Khalil Kara­math, 23, the son of late con­trac­tor Hafeez Kara­math, of Palm Road, Val­sayn, both pe­ti­tioned the High Court with habeas cor­pus writ ap­pli­ca­tions. The ap­pli­ca­tions sought to force au­thor­i­ties to jus­ti­fy their con­tin­ued de­ten­tion. Choate's ap­pli­ca­tion which is be­fore Jus­tice An­dre Des Vi­gnes was ad­journed to Tues­day while the judg­ment in Kara­math's ap­pli­ca­tion was re­served to a lat­er date by Jus­tice David Har­ris.

On Fri­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing both men, pe­ti­tioned the Emer­gency Pow­ers Spe­cial Tri­bunal seek­ing a re­view of the men's de­ten­tion or­ders. The tri­bunal, which was set up by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, in pur­suance of the reg­u­la­tions and the Con­sti­tu­tion, is chaired by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and in­cludes Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, and at­tor­ney Ra­j­man­lal Joseph. Af­ter hear­ing le­gal ar­gu­ments pre­sent­ed on be­half of the State and the men's le­gal teams, both mat­ters were ad­journed to dates in mid- De­cem­ber.

Lawyers re­spond

Yes­ter­day, sev­er­al at­tor­neys who are rep­re­sent­ing the de­tainees said they ex­pect­ed their clients to be re­leased im­me­di­ate­ly at the end of the state of emer­gency if no crim­i­nal charges were laid against them. The lawyers said that they did not ex­pect any pro­ce­dur­al or ad­min­is­tra­tive prob­lems which might force their clients to spend one ex­tra minute in de­ten­tion if they were not charged by the dead­line. One at­tor­ney, who is rep­re­sent­ing two de­tainees, ex­pressed fears that his clients might be re­ar­rest­ed if re­leased to­mor­row on a "fal­si­fied" charge.

Those de­tained

• Sel­wyn Alex­is, al­so known as "Robo­cop", a busi­ness­man of Fran­cois Street, En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

• Yohann Cruick­shank, al­so called "Wal­ly", of May­ers Lane, Chrissie Ter­race, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas.

• David Mil­lard, al­so known as "Buffy", of 64, La Ba­ja Road, Mara­cas, St Joseph.

• Andy Brown, al­so called "Su­dan", of Green and King Streets, Ply­mouth, To­ba­go.

• Po­lice Sergeant Earl Elie, of Samp­son Trace, off Cunu­pia Road, Cunu­pia. He was last as­signed to the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion.

• William Tay­lor, al­so known as "Bil­ly", of Cu­mu­to Main Road, Waller­field, Cu­mu­to.

• Bryan Bar­ring­ton, al­so called "Sol­dier Bar­ry", of 20, Par­tap Trace, South Oropouche. Bar­ring­ton is a for­mer mem­ber of the De­fence Force and was dis­hon­ourably dis­charged from the ser­vice.

• Khalil Kara­math. of 30, Palm Road, Val­sayn North, Val­sayn. Kara­math is the son of late con­trac­tor Hafeez Kara­math.

• Shane Craw­ford, al­so called "Asadul­lah", of 349 Dass Branch Trace, En­ter­prise.

• Mil­ton Al­ger­non, al­so called Fa­reed Mustapha, of 34 Hi­bis­cus Arc Road, Rio Claro. Al­ger­non is a mem­ber of the T&T Sheep and Goat Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion.

• Chione­su Luq­man, al­so called Asim Cuffie, and al­so called Sal­im Luq­man, of Mon Re­pos, Up­per Mal­ick, Mor­vant, and of Thomas Trace, East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, and of St Mar­garet's Lane, Bel­mont.

• Ash­meed Choate, of Craig­nish Road, Princes Town.

• Ash­meed Mo­hammed, of 21 Claude Street, La Ro­maine. Oth­er ad­dress­es in­clud­ed Light­pole 64, Charles Street, La Ro­maine, and 353 South­ern Main Road, La Ro­maine.

• Ja­son Brown, al­so called "Ab­dool Ka­reem", of 10 William Trace, El So­cor­ro Road, San Juan.

• Zaid Ab­dul Hamid, of cor­ner Richard Lane and Ap­ing Streets, Long­denville.

• Do­minic Piti­lal, al­so called "Ja­mal", of 196 West­ern Main Road, Co­corite.