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.