Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has sought ad­vice from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, over al­le­ga­tions made against him by de­tained prison su­per­vi­sor Garth Gua­da.

On Fri­day, Gua­da, who is cur­rent­ly be­ing de­tained for al­leged­ly pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to a gang un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency based on a de­ten­tion or­der is­sued by Alexan­der, claimed, through his at­tor­ney Krys­tal Primus, that Alexan­der had sev­er­al meet­ings with in­car­cer­at­ed al­leged gang mem­bers short­ly be­fore he left the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pur­sue a ca­reer in pol­i­tics.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Alexan­der con­firmed that he had con­sult­ed with Je­re­mie on the is­sue and would pub­licly ad­dress the al­le­ga­tions to­mor­row.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions. Forde said he was in a meet­ing and would re­turn the call. How­ev­er, he did not do so up to late yes­ter­day.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Primus claimed that her client’s de­ten­tion was based on a per­son­al vendet­ta Alexan­der had against him (Gua­da) af­ter he (Gua­da) re­port­ed his al­leged clan­des­tine meet­ings to se­nior prison and po­lice of­fi­cers.

Primus said, “It is my client’s po­si­tion that your de­ci­sion was in­flu­enced by an im­prop­er mo­tive and a clear con­flict of in­ter­est due to a pre-ex­ist­ing re­la­tion­ship and per­son­al an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween you and my client, stem­ming from your re­cent vis­its to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison and in­for­ma­tion that was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the TTPS In­tel­li­gence Unit about your af­fairs.”

While Primus did not iden­ti­fy the dates of the al­leged meet­ings sought by Alexan­der, she claimed that the re­quests were first made when Alexan­der, who was last as­signed to the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, was on va­ca­tion leave ear­li­er this year.

Primus claimed that while Gua­da re­fused to fa­cil­i­tate un­su­per­vised vis­its with a mem­ber of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang, he did al­low Alexan­der to speak to a mem­ber in his pres­ence and re­port­ed what tran­spired to se­nior prison of­fi­cers.

She claimed that the meet­ings re­quest con­tin­ued af­ter Alexan­der was elect­ed Tu­na­puna MP on April 28 and sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed to the Cab­i­net by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“On each oc­ca­sion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion was sent by my client to the ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Prison Ser­vice and the DCP In­tel­li­gence of the TTPS, Ms Suzette Mar­tin, as it was my client’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to do so.

She claimed that he had worked close­ly with the TTPS in the past and had pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion on gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty in the prison.

He al­so claimed that he had been threat­ened by crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the past and his home was tar­get­ed in a shoot­ing as a re­sult of his role as a se­nior prison of­fi­cer.

Primus re­quest­ed an ur­gent re­sponse as she threat­ened to file a law­suit against Alexan­der.

“You have abused the pow­ers grant­ed to you un­der the SoE,” Primus said.

“I will seek a de­c­la­ra­tion from the High Court that the pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders were void from in­cep­tion and will al­so claim for spe­cial and gen­er­al dam­ages, as well as all costs in­curred,” she added.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to seek a re­sponse from Alexan­der to the al­le­ga­tions as he was mak­ing his way to the Red House for a par­lia­men­tary de­bate on Fri­day af­ter­noon. How­ev­er, he evad­ed ques­tions while briskly walk­ing away.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der, which was signed on Au­gust 18 and gazetted last Tues­day, Gua­da, of Mal­abar, Ari­ma, was al­leged to be an as­so­ciate of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang led by al­leged gang leader and mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali.

The or­der against Gua­da stat­ed, “He has been con­firmed to be pro­vid­ing sup­port to oth­er gang lead­ers and mem­bers who are in­car­cer­at­ed in fur­ther­ance of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in, in­volve­ment in, or com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the im­mi­nent­ly planned killing of pub­lic of­fi­cials in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles.”

The or­der said as a prison su­per­vi­sor, Gua­da “re­peat­ed­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed the breach of prison se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for the ben­e­fit of the gang mem­bers and has been try­ing to en­gage in fur­ther breach­es at their cur­rent place of in­car­cer­a­tion (Teteron Bar­racks)”.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der against Ali, he is ac­cused of ac­cess­ing “pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles” while at the De­fence Force bases in Ch­aguara­mas.

Gua­da’s de­ten­tion or­der said this sit­u­a­tion made him a se­ri­ous threat to pub­lic safe­ty, and his de­ten­tion at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre was nec­es­sary, as he has shown that he has the means and re­sources “to as­sist in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons to en­gage in gang ac­tiv­i­ty de­spite their present in­car­cer­a­tion and is a threat to the safe­ty of the pub­lic”.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter her client was de­tained, Primus not­ed that her client de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

Primus said, “Every­thing that is con­tained in the de­ten­tion or­der is con­test­ed. That is hearsay and pro­pa­gan­da. They know the truth. Let them come out and tell the truth about what hap­pened at the Teteron Bar­racks.”

She claimed that her client vis­it­ed the makeshift prison fa­cil­i­ty on the in­struc­tions of for­mer act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, who was sent on va­ca­tion leave last month.

“He (Gua­da) was act­ing in ac­cor­dance with his du­ty and was act­ing on or­ders,” Primus said.

She strong­ly chal­lenged claims made in the pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der, as she con­tend­ed that Gua­da served as a dri­ver dur­ing the brief vis­it and stayed in the ve­hi­cle, while his col­leagues, who were se­nior to him, went in­side.

“So there is no way that the min­is­ter ex­pects us to be­lieve that Mr Gua­da went of his own vo­li­tion, walked in Teteron past all the se­cu­ri­ty they have in place and hand­ed con­tra­band to the in­mates. That is un­be­liev­able,” Primus said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Gua­da chal­lenged his de­ten­tion be­fore the SoE Re­view Tri­bunal, in­clud­ing be­ing trans­ferred from the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in Ari­ma to the Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

His case came up for hear­ing on Thurs­day but had to be de­ferred as he was not al­lowed to ac­cess the vir­tu­al hear­ing.

Primus was al­so re­port­ed­ly blocked from meet­ing Gua­da on Wednes­day to pre­pare for the tri­bunal.

Un­der its pro­ce­dur­al guide­lines that were pub­lished in the Gazette on Au­gust 13, the tri­bunal con­sid­ers the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the de­ten­tion or­ders pro­vid­ed by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and sub­mis­sions from the de­tainee or their le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The tri­bunal can then make rec­om­men­da­tions over the de­ten­tion or­der based on its find­ings but does not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to com­pel the with­draw­al of such or­ders.