DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of ex­tort­ing busi­ness­es in San­gre Grande will have to wait to chal­lenge the re­in­state­ment of the case against their clients.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that at­tor­neys Ul­ric Sker­ritt, Ter­ry Boy­er, and Sean­na Ba­boolal raised a pre­lim­i­nary ob­jec­tion as they hap­pened to be present in court yes­ter­day morn­ing as of­fi­cers from the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Shabi­ki Caz­abon to ob­tain sum­mons to se­cure the of­fi­cers’ ap­pear­ance in court.

Sker­ritt claimed that the move to re-lay the charges against the of­fi­cers, which were dis­missed by High Court Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va last week, was an abuse of process.

Mas­ter Caz­abon did not en­ter­tain the le­gal chal­lenge as she ad­vised the lawyers that they could raise it when the of­fi­cers ap­pear be­fore her on Feb­ru­ary 21, next year.

The sum­mons­es are now ex­pect­ed to be of­fi­cial­ly served on the of­fi­cers.

On Tues­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is­sued a state­ment an­nounc­ing that the charges against the of­fi­cers, which were dis­missed by High Court Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va, last Mon­day, would be re-laid.

The re­lease stat­ed that the de­ci­sion was based on ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and in­clud­ed a brief quote from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “The re-lay­ing of these charges demon­strates our com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that jus­tice is served.

“The TTPS will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the of­fice of the DPP to en­sure the prop­er de­ter­mi­na­tion of these mat­ters,” she added.

In a brief in­ter­view, Sker­ritt not­ed that the of­fi­cers learned of the de­ci­sion through me­dia re­ports on the TTPS re­lease.

“They weren’t in­formed at all. That is not how the po­lice re­al­ly op­er­ate,” he said.

“They (the of­fi­cers) are in fact not hap­py. Of course, they will not be hap­py,” he added.

In April 2023, the of­fi­cers—In­spec­tor Deyal Ram­lakhan, act­ing Cor­po­ral Sa­heed Khan, Con­sta­bles Cleon Smith, Da­vanan Rag­bir, Macai Joseph, Ja­son O’Souna, and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) Ray­on Charles—were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice.

The charges arose from a probe that was launched af­ter a video al­leged­ly de­pict­ing po­lice of­fi­cers seiz­ing a quan­ti­ty of cash from a San­gre Grande busi­ness went vi­ral.

In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, Cor­po­ral Khan, and Con­sta­ble Rag­bir were ac­cused of mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing $27,693 from a busi­ness; In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, Con­sta­ble Joseph, and SRP Smith were im­pli­cat­ed in the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of $12,297; Con­sta­bles Smith and Rag­bir were charged with con­spir­ing to make false state­ments to im­pli­cate vic­tims in an il­le­gal gam­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion; In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, PC Rag­bir, SRP Smith, and SRP Charles were charged with mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing $38,500.

The of­fi­cers main­tained their in­no­cence.

Last Mon­day, Mas­ter De Sil­va dis­missed the charges based on the fail­ure of the pros­e­cu­tion to meet court or­ders, present cru­cial ev­i­dence, and en­sure the at­ten­dance of key wit­ness­es.

There was strong pub­lic furore fol­low­ing her de­ci­sion, with politi­cians and mem­bers of the pub­lic weigh­ing in on what tran­spired.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), led by Di­rec­tor David West, sub­se­quent­ly launched a probe.

Last Fri­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher an­nounced that she had com­menced dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against three of­fi­cers who were in­volved in prob­ing their col­leagues and charg­ing them.

The of­fi­cers in the San­gre Grande case are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, Rus­sell Warn­er, Pe­ter Carter, Fa­reed Ali, and Sher­ry Singh.

Two days af­ter the dis­missal of the San­gre Grande case, Mas­ter De Sil­va dis­missed a sep­a­rate bribery case against five out of sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers, who were rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, due to there be­ing in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against them.

Mas­ter De Sil­va al­so cit­ed pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­steps and re­peat­ed non-com­pli­ance with her pre­vi­ous court or­ders.

On Mon­day, De Sil­va al­so de­liv­ered a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion in re­la­tion to the two re­main­ing of­fi­cers be­fore her.

In that case, Keenan Williams, Evans Mitchell, Kevin Gomez, Lat­i­fa Leza­ma, Jabari Mc In­tyre, Keiran Morang and Nicholas Raghoo­bar were charged for al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing and re­ceiv­ing a bribe from an Arou­ca cou­ple.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly found cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a search of the cou­ple’s home at Five Rivers, Arou­ca, and al­leged­ly so­licit­ed a $30,000 bribe and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to not pros­e­cute them.