DEREK ACHONG

Five po­lice of­fi­cers are de­mand­ing that they be im­me­di­ate­ly re­in­stat­ed af­ter they were freed of crim­i­nal charges re­lat­ed to the al­leged ex­tor­tion of an Arou­ca cou­ple in No­vem­ber last year.

At­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan made the de­mand on be­half of Jabari McIn­tyre, Kevin Gomez, Keenan Williams, Evans Mitchell, and Lat­i­fah Leza­ma in a le­gal let­ter sent to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin yes­ter­day.

Ramb­ha­jan not­ed that af­ter the of­fi­cers were freed by High Court Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va based on a no-case sub­mis­sion in mid-No­vem­ber last year, they de­liv­ered the court or­der to the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice to help ex­pe­dite the lift­ing of their sus­pen­sions.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that they were not re­in­stat­ed and paid the salary of ben­e­fits that were with­held from them while be­ing sus­pend­ed due to the case.

She gave Ben­jamin sev­en days to re­spond be­fore she filed a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit on their be­half.

“I have ad­vised my clients that, in the ab­sence of any law­ful jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, the com­mis­sion­er’s con­tin­u­ing de­lay in re­in­stat­ing them to du­ty with full salary and ben­e­fits is li­able to chal­lenge in ju­di­cial re­view,” she said.

The of­fi­cers were charged with ex­tor­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in re­la­tion to an al­leged in­ci­dent with an Arou­ca cou­ple in 2023.

The of­fi­cers al­leged­ly ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at the cou­ple’s Five Rivers, Arou­ca, home and found cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na and am­mu­ni­tion.

It was al­leged that the of­fi­cers so­licit­ed and ac­cept­ed a $30,000 bribe and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to not pros­e­cute the cou­ple.

They made mul­ti­ple court ap­pear­ances be­fore Mas­ter De Sil­va up­held Ramb­ha­jan’s ap­pli­ca­tion, al­leg­ing that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to prove the case against them.

Mas­ter De Sil­va al­so cit­ed pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­steps and re­peat­ed non-com­pli­ance with her pre­vi­ous court or­ders.

Days be­fore the out­come of the case, Mas­ter De Sil­va dis­missed sep­a­rate crim­i­nal charges against sev­en of­fi­cers for al­leged­ly ex­tort­ing busi­ness­es in San­gre Grande.

Her de­ci­sion was based on the fail­ure of the pros­e­cu­tion to meet court or­ders, present cru­cial ev­i­dence, and en­sure the at­ten­dance of key wit­ness­es.

In April 2023, the of­fi­cers—In­spec­tor Deyal Ram­lakhan, act­ing Cor­po­ral Sa­heed Khan, Con­sta­bles Cleon Smith, Da­vanan Rag­bir, Macai Joseph, Ja­son O’Souna, and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) Ray­on Charles—were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice.

The charges arose from a probe that was launched af­ter a video al­leged­ly de­pict­ing po­lice of­fi­cers seiz­ing a quan­ti­ty of cash from a San­gre Grande busi­ness went vi­ral.

The charges against the sev­en of­fi­cers were even­tu­al­ly re­laid.

It was al­so an­nounced that dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion had com­menced against three of­fi­cers, who were in­volved in prob­ing their col­leagues and charg­ing them.

The of­fi­cers made their first ap­pear­ance in the re­in­stat­ed case be­fore High Court Mas­ter Shabi­ki Caz­abon yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, the of­fi­cers’ lawyers, in­clud­ing Fa­reed Ali, claimed that pros­e­cu­tors should have ap­pealed Mas­ter De Sil­va’s de­ci­sion in­stead of re­lay­ing the charges.

They al­so sug­gest­ed that Mas­ter Caz­abon should not give case man­age­ment di­rec­tions un­til the Court of Ap­peal de­cid­ed a land­mark pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal over the abil­i­ty of High Court Mas­ters to take such de­ci­sions based on the pro­vi­sions of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act and the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules.

Mas­ter Caz­abon agreed to not set dead­lines and ad­journed the case to May 21.