Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

A lit­tle over a week af­ter the col­lapse of the case against sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of “ex­tort­ing” busi­ness­es in San­gre Grande, the charges have been re-laid.

The de­ci­sion to re-lay the charges against the of­fi­cers was an­nounced by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day evening.

The re­lease stat­ed that the de­ci­sion was based on ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and in­clud­ed a brief quote from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “The re-lay­ing of these charges demon­strates our com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that jus­tice is served. The TTPS will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the of­fice of the DPP to en­sure the prop­er de­ter­mi­na­tion of these mat­ters.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the of­fi­cers’ lawyers on­ly learnt of the de­vel­op­ment af­ter be­ing con­tact­ed to re­spond to the press re­lease.

Sev­er­al de­clined to com­ment un­til they held dis­cus­sions with their clients.

“Well, all I can say is that I’ll be tak­ing in­struc­tions from my client in re­la­tion to the news,” at­tor­ney Pe­ter Carter said.

“We will ad­dress the is­sue,” Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der said in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the de­ci­sion may po­ten­tial­ly be af­fect­ed by the out­come of a pend­ing ju­di­cial re­view case over the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to re-lay charges af­ter they (the charges) are dis­missed in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, which is be­ing pur­sued by Carter and Se­nior Coun­sel Lee Mer­ry. 

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. 

In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, Cor­po­ral Khan, and Con­sta­ble Rag­bir were ac­cused of mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing $27,693 from a busi­ness; In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, Con­sta­ble Joseph, and SRP Smith were im­pli­cat­ed in the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of $12,297; Con­sta­bles Smith and Rag­bir were charged with con­spir­ing to make false state­ments to im­pli­cate vic­tims in an il­le­gal gam­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion; In­spec­tor Ram­lakhan, PC Rag­bir, SRP Smith, and SRP Charles were charged with mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing $38,500. The of­fi­cers main­tained their in­no­cence since be­ing im­pli­cat­ed. 

Last Mon­day, High Court Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va dis­missed the charges based on the fail­ure of the pros­e­cu­tion to meet court or­ders, present cru­cial ev­i­dence, and en­sure the at­ten­dance of key wit­ness­es. There was strong pub­lic furore fol­low­ing her de­ci­sion, with politi­cians and mem­bers of the pub­lic weigh­ing in on what tran­spired.

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), led by Di­rec­tor David West sub­se­quent­ly launched a probe. Last Fri­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher an­nounced that she had com­menced dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against three of­fi­cers who were in­volved in prob­ing their col­leagues and charg­ing them. 

Two days af­ter the dis­missal of the San­gre Grande case, Mas­ter De Sil­va dis­missed a bribery case against five out of sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers, who were rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan due to there be­ing in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against them. 

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

On Mon­day, De Sil­va de­liv­ered a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion in re­la­tion to the two re­main­ing of­fi­cers be­fore her. 

In that case, of­fi­cers Keenan Williams, Evans Mitchell, Kevin Gomez, Lat­i­fa Leza­ma, Jabari Mc In­tyre, Keiran Morang, and Nicholas Raghoo­bar were charged for al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing and re­ceiv­ing a bribe from an Arou­ca cou­ple. 

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly found cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a search of the cou­ple’s home at Five Rivers, Arou­ca, and al­leged­ly so­licit­ed a $30,000 bribe and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to not pros­e­cute them.

Con­tact­ed in re­la­tion to the Arou­ca case on Mon­day, TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie stat­ed that the de­vel­op­ment in the Arou­ca case would not af­fect the steps al­ready be­ing tak­en by the TTPS that were pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced by Hare­wood-Christo­pher. She said that se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers would hold dis­cus­sions with the DPP on both cas­es.