An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Hours be­fore the State of Emer­gency (SoE) was set to ex­pire to­day, po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors took cus­tody of 11 peo­ple who had been held un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO), fol­low­ing re­vo­ca­tion or­ders signed yes­ter­day.

This group, which in­clud­ed two fe­males, are to be charged with a se­ries of gang-re­lat­ed of­fences, con­spir­a­cy to mur­der, and sev­er­al of­fences un­der the Mis­cel­la­neous Act of 2019.

The de­tainees had been in­car­cer­at­ed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC), San­ta Rosa, af­ter they were ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers dur­ing the SoE, which ran from De­cem­ber 30, 2024, to April 13, 2025.

Along with the 11, three oth­er peo­ple who re­mained in po­lice cus­tody at San­gre Grande and Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day are to be joined in the charges, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber to be charged to 14.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands the two women fac­ing charges were held fol­low­ing sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Mean­while, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 oth­er SoE de­tainees are to be re­leased at vary­ing times from the ECRC, the Women’s Prison and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison by the prison au­thor­i­ties to­day.

Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon con­firmed, “The TTPS and the TTDF will be ren­der­ing strong lo­gis­ti­cal se­cu­ri­ty sup­port for the process, and al­so present will be the in­ves­ti­ga­tors in the dif­fer­ent mat­ters.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin.