Geisha Kow­lessar

No blame must be lev­elled against the po­lice af­ter 16 peo­ple who were de­tained un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions have been set free.Free­dom was grant­ed af­ter po­lice of­fi­cials, at a press brief­ing at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, ad­mit­ted there was no ev­i­dence to charge them.A se­nior lawyer, who was in­volved in the mat­ter, said, giv­en the na­ture of the of­fences and the peo­ple pur­port­ed­ly in­volved, the po­lice were left with lit­tle choice but to car­ry out ar­rests and to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens.

He added: "If we are in a state of emer­gency and the po­lice re­ceive cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion that a plot is be­ing hatched, es­pe­cial­ly to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, then the po­lice had no choice in the mat­ter but to go ahead and make ar­rests. How could they not?" He in­di­cat­ed that where the mat­ter fell down was due to lack of cred­i­ble ev­i­dence.

He added: "That was not the fault of the po­lice."The sys­tem worked in the way it was sup­posed to work but who would have come for­ward to give ev­i­dence against these peo­ple. The men were held on sus­pi­cion."The po­lice were hav­ing a very dif­fi­cult time in the first place to gath­er ev­i­dence, so there­fore lay­ing charges be­came al­most im­pos­si­ble and the State was left with no choice but to have the de­tainees re­leased," the of­fi­cial added.

De­scrib­ing the chain of events as un­for­tu­nate, he said it al­so was dif­fi­cult to say whether the ef­forts of the po­lice were in­ef­fi­cient."The po­lice did all they could have done, giv­en what was pre­sent­ed to them. They had in­for­ma­tion of named par­tic­i­pants and named vic­tims and that was more than suf­fi­cient to act," the of­fi­cial added.Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion reach­ing Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cials, a plot was hatched to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma.

Who were 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 Trance, 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, an Is­lam­ic schol­ar, 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.