Sascha Wil­son

Out­spo­ken High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, who has re­ceived more than one threat on his life in re­cent times, says he will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed from dis­charg­ing his du­ties.

Seep­er­sad made the re­mark as he re­sumed court af­ter a two-hour de­lay fol­low­ing a bomb scare at San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court yes­ter­day.

Thank­ing the at­tor­neys and par­ties for their pa­tience while search­es were con­duct­ed to en­sure the build­ing was safe, Seep­er­sad not­ed that a func­tion­ing ju­di­cial sys­tem is a crit­i­cal as­pect of a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy.

An officer attached to the K9 Unit searches with his dog outside the San Fernando Supreme Court for a possible bomb yesterday, after it was shut down due to threat.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“Threats to ju­di­cial of­fi­cers or plant and equip­ment can­not and will not be tol­er­at­ed. No threat, whether di­rect or in­di­rect, will de­ter this court from dis­charg­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tions,” Seep­er­sad said.

Last month, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ceived a death threat at his home in South Trinidad. An en­ve­lope was found in his mail­box con­tain­ing a 9mm bul­let and a note warn­ing that he should re­sign or the bul­let would look “good be­tween his eyes.”

Po­lice said the tele­phone op­er­a­tor at the court re­ceived a call short­ly be­fore 9 am yes­ter­day that there was a bomb in the build­ing. Seep­er­sad and Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, the ju­di­cial of­fi­cers at the court, as well as oth­er staff and mem­bers of the pub­lic were then evac­u­at­ed from the build­ing along Har­ris Street. The Mag­is­trates’ Court al­so op­er­ates out of the build­ing.

San Fernando Magistrates’ Court workers walk to City Hall after a bomb scare was reported yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

The roads with­in the perime­ter of the build­ing were blocked off and snif­fer dogs, bomb ex­perts, po­lice and fire of­fi­cers searched for any ex­plo­sive de­vices in and around the build­ing. Of­fi­cers of The Mon Re­pos Fire Head­quar­ters and the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice were on the scene. How­ev­er, no ev­i­dence of an ex­plo­sive de­vice was found and ac­tiv­i­ties were al­lowed to re­sume.

Seep­er­sad even­tu­al­ly presided over three civ­il mat­ters.