Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney CJ Williams, who rep­re­sents two men ac­cused of mur­der­ing state pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, is warn­ing that state­ments made in Par­lia­ment by De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge last Fri­day could have im­pli­ca­tions for on­go­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in­volv­ing his clients.

His clients, Earl Richards and Ra­jaee Ali, re­main de­tained at the Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas, as le­gal pro­ceed­ings con­tin­ue in the mat­ter.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on the min­is­ter’s con­tri­bu­tion in the House, Williams ac­knowl­edged that state­ments made in Par­lia­ment at­tract ab­solute par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege but said the rule against sub ju­dice must al­so be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered where on­go­ing mat­ters are con­cerned.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion, Sturge told Par­lia­ment that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to rein­tro­duce the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion, in­sist­ing the mea­sure would pass even with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

Dur­ing the same con­tri­bu­tion, the min­is­ter al­so re­ferred to past high-pro­file killings, such as the Dana See­ta­hal mur­der, and sug­gest­ed that au­thor­i­ties pre­vi­ous­ly re­lied on sur­veil­lance in­tel­li­gence with­out tak­ing suf­fi­cient pre­ven­ta­tive ac­tion.

He ar­gued that in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing threats to life had not been de­ci­sive­ly act­ed up­on.

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young ob­ject­ed to the min­is­ter’s as­ser­tions, warn­ing against sug­ges­tions that po­lit­i­cal fig­ures had ac­cess to in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions and said that un­der the law, on­ly spec­i­fied se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials can au­tho­rise such in­ter­cepts.

Williams not­ed that the min­is­ter’s re­marks ref­er­enced is­sues dat­ing back to 2010 to 2015, when Gary Grif­fith served as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

“There was a fail­ure to file the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency’s re­port, as well as fail­ures to file the In­ter­cep­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tions re­port for five years. That’s the same time when Ms See­ta­hal was killed,” Williams said.

Ac­cord­ing to the at­tor­ney, ev­i­dence in the case in­cludes records of in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions al­leged­ly re­lat­ing to plan­ning ac­tiv­i­ties con­nect­ed to the killing.

“And that, of course, if it’s been in­ter­cept­ed, it must go to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and those in­ter­cept re­ports are au­dit­ed and vet­ted by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, no mat­ter what, that’s the process,” he added.

Williams ar­gued that the de­vel­op­ments raise broad­er ques­tions about whether the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice act­ed suf­fi­cient­ly on in­tel­li­gence that could have pro­tect­ed See­ta­hal’s life.

“So, with that said, from the case there’s a clear and ap­par­ent fail­ure of the TTPS to pro­tect Ms See­ta­hal’s life, that brings in­to play a big­ger ques­tion: why did this hap­pen? Why was there such a big in­for­ma­tion gap?” he said.

The at­tor­ney al­so ques­tioned whether the min­is­ter’s par­lia­men­tary dis­clo­sures could af­fect the abil­i­ty of the ac­cused to re­ceive a fair tri­al.

“It re­al­ly and tru­ly boils down to this: Is what Mr Sturge is say­ing truth­ful? And if it is truth­ful, that re­al­ly calls for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion … be­cause with the al­le­ga­tions of politi­cians in­volved in this, they may still be around,” Williams said.

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that the state­ments bring in­to fo­cus the use of in­ter­cep­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions in crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“Un­less it is that we as a so­ci­ety say that if what Mr Sturge is say­ing is right, that re­al­ly calls in­to ques­tion the use of in­ter­cep­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions in this coun­try to pro­tect a life,” he said.

Williams con­firmed that at­tor­neys are cur­rent­ly await­ing a re­view of the case file by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and a de­ci­sion on whether an in­dict­ment will be filed.

“It’s an in­ter­est­ing process be­cause now we wish to know how the DPP ex­er­cis­es dis­cre­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in light of these rev­e­la­tions by Mr Sturge, to file a charge or to prof­fer a charge against those in­di­vid­u­als,” he said.

He dis­closed that in 2025, cor­re­spon­dence was sent to both the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the DPP un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act seek­ing clar­i­ty on what in­tel­li­gence ex­ist­ed through in­ter­cepts and what pro­tec­tive steps were tak­en.

“That’s the re­al ba­sis of that FOIA be­fore the DPP. We must know. The pop­u­la­tion must know,” he added.

Williams con­firmed Richards and Ali re­main de­tained at Teteron Bar­racks and raised con­cerns about over­sight of the fa­cil­i­ty.

“We have that con­cern as to who re­al­ly con­trols the Teteron bar­racks, be­cause the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons can­not just pass the bar­ri­ers and go in­side there to see the prison. If the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons has to make an ap­point­ment to vis­it pris­on­ers, ob­vi­ous­ly, he is not in con­trol of that place,” he said.

Williams added that he had a mat­ter be­fore Jus­tice Gob­in, and in­di­cat­ed that the min­is­ter’s par­lia­men­tary state­ments could form part of fu­ture le­gal ar­gu­ments de­pend­ing on the re­sponse from pros­e­cu­tors.