Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Two pro­test­ers and a so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty, who were ar­rest­ed by po­lice on Wednes­day dur­ing a demon­stra­tion near the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), were re­leased on own bail last night, af­ter be­ing charged in con­nec­tion with their con­duct dur­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty.

Guardian Me­dia was, how­ev­er, un­able to con­firm the charges laid against the ac­cused or the amount of the bail via po­lice sources last night.

Alyssa Phillip and her moth­er Camille Cares­quero were ar­rest­ed as they staged a demon­stra­tion out­side the Sa­cred Heart RC Church, walk­ing dis­tance away from the DPP’s of­fice on Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain.

Phillip’s ar­rest came af­ter ACP North-West Sean Hen­ry warned her and oth­er pro­test­ers to stop chant­i­ng.

Short­ly be­fore the protest be­gan ear­li­er that af­ter­noon, Ja­son De Sil­va, a so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty, was al­so ar­rest­ed by Hen­ry with help from of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) at the cor­ner of Sackville and Rich­mond Streets.

Con­tact­ed ear­li­er yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney San­jiv Bood­hu had re­port­ed that as of 8.47 am yes­ter­day, both moth­er and daugh­ter had not yet been charged.

Guardian Me­dia was lat­er told that Bood­hu was no longer rep­re­sent­ing Phillip and Cares­quero, as an­oth­er at­tor­ney, Fay­ola Sandy, was their coun­sel.

Ef­forts to con­tact Sandy via phone and What­sApp were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time last evening.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, DCP Ad­min­is­tra­tion Ju­nior Ben­jamin con­firmed that up to mid­day, the trio were still in cus­tody with no charges be­ing laid.

“Present­ly, we are still en­gag­ing with the DCP Op­er­a­tions as well as the le­gal team in deal­ing with this mat­ter,” Ben­jamin said.

“We recog­nise this is a very sen­si­tive one and... so far, no charges have been laid as yet, but, nev­er­the­less, we are en­sur­ing that we deal with this sit­u­a­tion in a very sen­si­tive way so that we can en­sure that what­ev­er is done is done fair­ly and above board.”

He added that while he was un­able to say when charges would be laid, he main­tained that in­ves­ti­ga­tors were ex­pect­ed to work with­in sev­er­al time­lines.

“There is a par­tic­u­lar time that is giv­en to us to deal with these sit­u­a­tions to en­sure that we fol­low those pro­to­cols.”

Guardian Me­dia was told by peo­ple close to protest or­gan­is­ers that at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing those de­tained would pro­vide state­ments on the sit­u­a­tion out­side the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion at 3 pm.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment near that time, one demon­stra­tor said the is­suance of the press re­lease was post­poned, not­ing that state­ments on the mat­ter would be done “if and when the lawyer de­cides to re­lease a state­ment.”