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Thursday, February 27, 2025

‘Chris Must List’ charged with sedition

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
272 days ago
20240531
Canadian YouTuber Chris Must List real name Christopher Arthur Hughes has been charged with sedition.

Canadian YouTuber Chris Must List real name Christopher Arthur Hughes has been charged with sedition.

Cana­di­an YouTu­ber Christo­pher Hugh­es, wide­ly known as Chris Must List, has been charged with sedi­tion by lo­cal po­lice af­ter videos showed him al­leged­ly in­ter­view­ing re­put­ed gang mem­bers in var­i­ous parts of the coun­try.

The ar­rest and charges against Hugh­es have left oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers up­set, with some open­ly ex­press­ing their anger with the au­thor­i­ties in T&T.

Hugh­es, 45, had been de­tained by po­lice on May 28 at Flag Staff, Long Cir­cu­lar, hours be­fore he was sched­uled to leave the coun­try.

The YouTube sen­sa­tion ar­rived in T&T three weeks ago and be­gan vis­it­ing com­mu­ni­ties where he al­leged­ly met with re­put­ed gang lead­ers, mem­bers and af­fil­i­ates who open­ly dis­played their cache of il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion and al­so spoke of their op­er­a­tions and trans­ac­tions.

Yes­ter­day, the TTPS, in a state­ment ti­tled YouTu­ber on TTPS Naughty list charged un­der Sedi­tion Act, ex­plained that Hugh­es was for­mal­ly charged by Sgt Lee of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) with Pub­lish­ing a State­ment with a Sedi­tious In­ten­tion on May 29.

The TTPS said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Hugh­es be­gan af­ter his so­cial me­dia ac­tiv­i­ties un­der the pseu­do­nym “Chris Must List” came to light. It said Hugh­es al­leged­ly post­ed videos fea­tur­ing in­di­vid­u­als pro­fess­ing to be gang mem­bers, ad­vo­cat­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and us­ing threat­en­ing lan­guage.

Po­lice said he was de­tained, in­ter­viewed and in­formed of the al­le­ga­tions against him fol­low­ing which the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard, SC, di­rect­ed de­tec­tives to charge him un­der Sec­tion 4(1)(c) of the Sedi­tion Act.

Hugh­es al­leged­ly vis­it­ed ar­eas in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna, Mor­vant, La Hor­quet­ta, Bel­mont and Sea Lots. Videos al­leged­ly showed mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance gang, whose mem­bers were killed dur­ing a shootout with po­lice dur­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the kid­nap­ping of dou­bles ven­dor An­isha Ho­sein-Singh.

Po­lice said sev­er­al items be­long­ing to Hugh­es were seized in­clud­ing one Ap­ple cell­phone; one Mac Book; one Go­Pro; two Sony cam­eras; and a mem­o­ry card.

The charge of sedi­tion car­ries a fine on con­vic­tion of $3,000 and im­pris­on­ment for two years; or a fine of $20,000 and im­pris­on­ment for five years.

Hugh­es’ at­tor­ney Criston Williams ex­pressed scep­ti­cism over the speed at which the au­thor­i­ties moved to charge his client af­ter he spoke of fil­ing a Habeas Cor­pus yes­ter­day.

An­tic­i­pat­ing the fall­out from the charges, Williams spec­u­lat­ed it could be “cat­a­stroph­ic” for the coun­try.

In­flu­encers up­set

Al­ready, sev­er­al so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers have re­act­ed an­gri­ly to charges be­ing laid against Hugh­es.

Some post­ed mes­sages to “Free Chris Must List”.

Con­tent cre­ator Opin­ion Box said the sit­u­a­tion “was not look­ing good for Trinidad and To­ba­go at all.”

He warned the news of the ar­rest had made its way to pop­u­lar con­tent cre­ator Dy­lan, who had thou­sands of fol­low­ers.

An­oth­er in­flu­encer Co­co Girl vis­it­ed Hugh­es dur­ing his de­ten­tion.

Fel­low YouTu­ber JaySauced weighed in on the un­fold­ing con­tro­ver­sy as she said it sim­ply did not add up.

In the so­cial me­dia post, she said, “Trinidad is a tax-pay­ing coun­try. The cit­i­zens, the civil­ians, fam­i­lies, dogs, birds, every­one out there pays (ex­ple­tive) tax­es to live there.”

She went on to ques­tion, “What are they do­ing with the mon­ey?”

She called on the au­thor­i­ties to fix what was wrong as charg­ing Hugh­es was not the way to rec­ti­fy the em­bar­rass­ment they were fac­ing as a re­sult of his find­ings and record­ings.

On Wednes­day, when asked about the sit­u­a­tion with Chris Must List, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, while at the Brix Ho­tel dur­ing a Cy­ber-Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Launch, said, “The law is the law and you must abide by it.”

Hugh­es is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court on Mon­day, ac­cord­ing to po­lice sources. Le­gal ex­perts said yes­ter­day noth­ing was pre­vent­ing him from ap­ply­ing for bail in the in­ter­im.


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