Derek Achong

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion have been in­vit­ed to share their views on the ex­pect­ed sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion to be award­ed to firearm deal­er Brent Thomas.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the in­vi­ta­tion came from Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad yes­ter­day, as he re­served next Mon­day to give di­rec­tions on fil­ing sub­mis­sions on the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to Thomas, fol­low­ing his le­gal vic­to­ry in the case last week.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al planned to file an ap­peal over Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands it was not served on Thomas’ le­gal team up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

In his ini­tial court fil­ings, Thomas’ lawyers, led by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, and De­vesh Ma­haraj, did not quan­ti­fy the com­pen­sa­tion be­ing sought but said he was en­ti­tled to dam­ages for breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, as well as vin­di­ca­to­ry and ex­em­plary dam­ages, which Jus­tice Ram­per­sad up­held.

How­ev­er, the bulk of the com­pen­sa­tion which Thomas will re­ceive, pro­vid­ed the judg­ment is not over­turned on ap­peal, will like­ly be for the loss­es he suf­fered due to the clo­sure of his busi­ness since the probe be­gan in Au­gust last year, and for dam­age to his com­mer­cial rep­u­ta­tion.

He will al­so re­ceive ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion for as­sault and bat­tery stem­ming from his ab­duc­tion by po­lice and sub­se­quent un­law­ful de­ten­tion.

Thomas’ lawyers and those for the AG’s Of­fice will make their sub­mis­sions on the dam­ages based on le­gal prece­dents set in sim­i­lar cas­es, with Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ul­ti­mate­ly de­cid­ing what is ap­pro­pri­ate in the cir­cum­stances.

In the law­suit, Thomas chal­lenged six search war­rants ob­tained by the po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate him and his busi­ness—Spe­cial­ist Shoot­ers Train­ing Cen­tre Ltd. Thomas al­so con­tend­ed that po­lice act­ed il­le­gal­ly when, with the as­sis­tance of the Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Force, they ab­duct­ed him as he was tran­sit­ing through Bar­ba­dos to seek med­ical at­ten­tion in Mi­a­mi last Oc­to­ber.

The AG’s Of­fice con­ced­ed that his re­turn was il­le­gal be­fore the case be­gan.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the first war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed at Thomas’ premis­es on Au­gust 8 last year.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors ex­e­cut­ed three more search war­rants be­fore Thomas was first de­tained on Sep­tem­ber 29.

Thomas spent sev­er­al days in po­lice cus­tody be­fore High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams or­dered his im­me­di­ate re­lease due to the in­abil­i­ty of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to jus­ti­fy his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion on Oc­to­ber 2.

The fol­low­ing day, Thomas trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos to fa­cil­i­tate his med­ical treat­ment. On Oc­to­ber 5, he was ar­rest­ed by heav­i­ly armed Bar­ba­dos po­lice at his ho­tel room.

Thomas was briefly de­tained be­fore be­ing trans­port­ed to the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he was hand­ed over to ASP Birch and an­oth­er of­fi­cer, who had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­e­cut­ed some of the search war­rants on his busi­ness and home.

Thomas was re­turned to Trinidad on a light air­craft sub­se­quent­ly linked to the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices (RSS) and was charged with sev­en firearm of­fences un­der cor­re­spond­ing ar­rest war­rants.

Sev­er­al weeks lat­er, the TTPS con­tact­ed Thomas and sought to re­vis­it his premis­es to con­tin­ue their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Al­though his le­gal team re­quest­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tors hold their hands un­til Thomas’ law­suit was de­ter­mined, they still ob­tained two fur­ther search war­rants which they ex­e­cut­ed.

Deal­ing with Thomas’ ar­rest in Bar­ba­dos, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that Thomas was un­law­ful­ly ab­duct­ed in Bar­ba­dos.

“That is an un­con­tro­ver­sial fact,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that the man­ner of Thomas’ de­ten­tion showed a clear at­tempt to by­pass the law­ful pro­ce­dure of re­quest­ing his ex­tra­di­tion.

As part of his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad up­held Thomas’ ap­pli­ca­tion to stay the sev­en crim­i­nal charges with “no hes­i­ta­tion.”

Deal­ing with the charges, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad not­ed that Thomas was li­censed to im­port and pos­sess the au­to­mat­ic weapons and ex­plo­sives he was charged with pos­sess­ing by suc­ces­sive Po­lice Com­mis­sion­ers. He al­so not­ed Thomas’ com­pa­ny sup­plied such weapons to arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

In re­solv­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad grant­ed a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions that Thomas’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been breached.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered com­pen­sa­tion for Thomas for the breach­es and dam­age to his per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion. The State was al­so or­dered to pay his le­gal costs.