Derek Achong

Scenes of mass ju­bi­la­tion echoed through­out the halls of the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day as 21 Port-of-Spain res­i­dents were freed of gang-re­lat­ed charges. The group, all of Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, caused a mas­sive up­roar from their rel­a­tives, as they left the court as free men. The men were charged un­der Sec­tion 5 (1) of the re­cent­ly passed An­ti-Gang Act, as be­ing mem­bers of a gang, name­ly the "Nel­son Street Gang". When their mat­ter was called in the Eighth Mag­is­trate Court be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Ma­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, stood up and told the court the State had in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sus­tain the charges against them.

Gas­pard said: "I have pe­rused the men's files and I have the un­flinch­ing view that there is not suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to con­tin­ue these pro­ceed­ings against these de­fen­dants. "Short­ly, I in­tend to file mo­tions of dis­con­tin­u­ance in re­spect to this mat­ter." On his an­nounce­ment, the large crowd sit­ting in the pub­lic gallery in the court burst in­to a round of ap­plause. The ex­pres­sions on the faces of the group of ac­cused in­stant­ly turned from ones of gloom to hap­pi­ness. At­tor­ney Ian Brooks, who rep­re­sent­ed one of the ac­cused, thanked Gas­pard for his prompt ac­tion. Brooks said: "This de­ci­sion proves the in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice of the DPP and Gas­pard him­self. "This de­ci­sion is a hap­py end­ing to a sad chap­ter in the his­to­ry of T&T."

Af­ter Ay­ers-Cae­sar dis­missed the charges against the men, who ranged in ages be­tween 18 to 63 years, Brooks hint­ed that the some of the ac­cused would be seek­ing to take le­gal ac­tion against the State for their de­ten­tion and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. He said: "We (at­tor­neys) will do what we have to from now on. These pro­ceed­ings have formed a se­vere blot on the re­port card of my client." Brooks al­so called on Gas­pard to ex­pe­dite the mat­ters of oth­er peo­ple charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act. The group's le­gal team in­clud­ed at­tor­neys Mario Mer­ritt, Criston J Williams, Kei­th Beck­les, Vin­cent Charles and Naveen Maraj.

State pros­e­cu­tors George Bus­by, Wen­dell Lu­cas and Richard Tay­lor as­sist­ed Gas­pard in the pros­e­cu­tion of the mat­ter. Williams, Charles and Beck­les all echoed the views of Brooks and thanked Gas­pard and Ay­ers-Cae­sar for their prompt ac­tion on be­half of their clients.

The at­tor­neys ques­tioned the State's po­si­tion on oth­er men sim­i­lar­ly charged un­der the Act dur­ing the on­go­ing state of emer­gency. They were ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Besson Street CID on Au­gust 23 and were the first in the coun­try to ap­pear in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court charged un­der the Act. The group first ap­peared be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar on Au­gust 25 to an­swer the charges to which they all plead­ed not guilty. On their sec­ond ap­pear­ance on Sep­tem­ber 5, al­though their at­tor­neys de­mand­ed in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence re­lat­ing to their clients' ar­rest and sub­se­quent charge, po­lice pros­e­cu­tors failed to of­fer any ev­i­dence, say­ing it would be avail­able as soon as pos­si­ble. Dur­ing an im­promp­tu press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the South Port-of-Spain Re­lief Cen­tre, George Street, mere me­tres from their homes, they said they were hap­py by the de­ci­sion but lament­ed about their ar­rests and 20-day de­ten­tion. Spokesman for the group, At­i­ba Gorkin, de­scribed prison con­di­tions as in­hu­mane. Gorkin said they were all crammed in­to a tiny cell from which they were on­ly al­lowed to leave once a day.