Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie says the Gov­ern­ment had no al­ter­na­tive but to take “de­ci­sive ac­tion” to de­clare yes­ter­day’s State of Emer­gency (SoE), cit­ing a trou­bling spike in grue­some, gang-re­lat­ed crimes al­leged­ly or­ches­trat­ed by gang mem­bers from in­side the na­tion’s pris­ons.

Jus­ti­fy­ing the de­ci­sion dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice in Port-of-Spain, Je­re­mie said, “We were left with no choice but to take the most dra­mat­ic ac­tion avail­able un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. We have done that, and we make no apolo­gies for it.”

Je­re­mie was the first Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial to com­ment on the SoE de­c­la­ra­tion.

He added that Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion had al­ready yield­ed re­sults and pro­tect­ed cit­i­zens.

“Well, the fact that I am here speak­ing to you this morn­ing and that half of the build­ing has not been de­stroyed by a rock­et launch­er should tell you that we have suc­ceed­ed in dis­rupt­ing a plan.”

Je­re­mie was im­me­di­ate­ly asked whether he was un­der threat, but he dis­missed the con­cern.

In ex­plain­ing the ra­tio­nale for the SoE, Je­re­mie said, “The Gov­ern­ment has been vig­i­lant to take note of cer­tain dis­turb­ing trends in the so­ci­ety of re­cent mo­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, we are con­scious that there have been 213 homi­cides so far in the year and that just this last week we have had some tru­ly hor­rif­ic crimes that have tak­en place.”

He said there was a resur­gence in kid­nap­pings, ex­tor­tion and ab­duc­tions for ran­som.

“Most of the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, we are ad­vised, is gang- re­lat­ed,” he said.

“Our in­tel­li­gence re­ports sug­gest, and they sug­gest strong­ly with a de­gree of high con­fi­dence, that the re­cent mur­der of a state pros­e­cu­tor was di­rect­ly linked to a spe­cif­ic gang.”

State At­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor was gunned down on De­cem­ber 31, 2024, as he left a church in Port-of-Spain. In­ves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest his mur­der may have been linked to a case he was pros­e­cut­ing against an al­leged gang leader.

The AG said he was al­so told a re­cent kid­nap­ping was gang re­lat­ed.

On Sun­day, Val­sayn res­i­dent Satie Karim was ab­duct­ed at gun­point by three armed men on Bassie Street, Spring Vil­lage, Curepe, while in her white Toy­ota Hilux with her hus­band and son.

Je­re­mie did not of­fer any more in­for­ma­tion, say­ing, “I pre­fer not to get in­to op­er­a­tional mat­ters. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has dealt with that part of it.”

Ref­er­enc­ing the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to Gov­ern­ment by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Je­re­mie ex­plained, “Yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the Gov­ern­ment learned that a plot was in the ad­vanced stages of ex­e­cu­tion from with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.

“The ob­ject of the plot was clear. It was di­rect­ed to­wards vi­o­lent at­tacks tar­get­ing cit­i­zens, per­sons in­volved in the jus­tice sys­tem at all lev­els and oth­ers in­volved in serv­ing this coun­try in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, in­clud­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, state fa­cil­i­ties were al­so tar­get­ed.”

He said Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed that im­me­di­ate ac­tion was re­quired.

“The on­ly re­spon­si­ble re­sponse for us was to al­low the TTPS, the De­fence Force and spe­cialised units of the armed forces to do what they are en­trust­ed by law to do and to do so in a man­ner that would match the se­vere dan­ger that was posed to all of us as law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.”

He said the Pres­i­dent signed the SoE procla­ma­tion at mid­night and a few hours lat­er, the po­lice be­gan to “in­ter­dict” known gang mem­bers al­leged to be in­volved in these plots in or­der to dis­rupt threats to the state.

“We say enough is enough.”

The AG added, “We are de­ter­mined to deal with this can­cer.”

He de­scribed the SoE as the “first phase” of a mul­ti-pronged strat­e­gy for com­bat­ing crime and course cor­rect­ing to­wards a more safe and peace­ful so­ci­ety.

Asked how long the SoE would last, Je­re­mie said, “It will con­tin­ue for as long as the se­cu­ri­ty forces tell us that they need the ad­di­tion­al leg­isla­tive sup­port.”

In T&T, a State of Emer­gency can ini­tial­ly last for 15 days af­ter a procla­ma­tion by the Pres­i­dent. How­ev­er, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives can ex­tend it for three months at a time by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote. The to­tal of these sim­ple-ma­jor­i­ty ex­ten­sions can­not ex­ceed six months.

Be­yond the ini­tial six months, fur­ther ex­ten­sions of no more than three months at a time can be passed, but these re­quire a res­o­lu­tion sup­port­ed by not less than three-fifths of all the mem­bers of both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

Je­re­mie was asked why Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not present at the me­dia brief­ing. In De­cem­ber 2024, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was crit­i­cal of Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ab­sence from the me­dia brief­ing that an­nounced the last SoE.

The AG said, “I could as­sure you that the prime min­is­ter was on the phone with me af­ter mid­night last night and sev­er­al times dur­ing the course of the ear­ly morn­ing. And when I spoke to her less than two hours ago, she had not slept for at least one night and pos­si­bly two. I asked her to go and sleep.”