DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A prop­er­ty de­vel­op­er un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for al­leged hu­man traf­fick­ing and al­leged­ly pay­ing his work­ers be­low the na­tion­al min­i­mum wage has ob­tained an in­junc­tion against the po­lice of­fi­cers prob­ing his busi­ness.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra and DG Homes Lim­it­ed ob­tained the emer­gency in­junc­tion while po­lice of­fi­cers were ex­e­cut­ing a search war­rant at his of­fice on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to his sub­se­quent court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Guer­ra claimed that he was forced to seek emer­gency re­lief from High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams af­ter he was in­ter­ro­gat­ed by a se­nior of­fi­cer, of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, who re­fused to al­low his lawyer Ger­ald Ramdeen to be present.

When the case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ramdeen in­di­cat­ed that the of­fi­cer did not stop the search af­ter be­ing pre­sent­ed with the court or­der and chal­lenged him to serve it first on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

He claimed that the search was con­duct­ed af­ter doc­u­ments were vol­un­tar­i­ly pre­sent­ed to of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Labour and they de­ter­mined that no of­fence was com­mit­ted in re­la­tion to wage pay­ments.

“There is a video record­ing of me read­ing out the or­der and giv­ing him a copy,” Ramdeen said.

Re­spond­ing to the claims, State at­tor­ney Ste­fan Jaikaran claimed that based on his ini­tial in­struc­tions, the of­fi­cer de­nied Ramdeen’s ver­sion of the events.

Jaikaran claimed that Guer­ra was not barred from con­sult­ing with Ramdeen. He al­so claimed that he was not quizzed about the al­le­ga­tions made against him and his busi­ness but rather over the lo­ca­tion of doc­u­ments be­ing sought un­der a le­git­i­mate search war­rant.

“There was no in­ter­view or in­ter­view notes record­ed,” he said.

Jaikaran did ad­mit that Guer­ra did have a right to con­sult with his lawyer if, in fact, he was be­ing in­ter­viewed.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that he would have to even­tu­al­ly de­ter­mine whether the of­fi­cer ig­nored the court or­der by con­sid­er­ing the di­a­met­ri­cal­ly op­posed po­si­tions pre­sent­ed, he ex­pressed con­cerns over the con­duct based on the as­sump­tion that the claims made by Ramdeen were true.

“It is ab­solute­ly un­ac­cept­able that an of­fi­cer of T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in the face of an or­der by a judge of the Supreme Court has the temer­i­ty to ig­nore it,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

“Whether you agree with it or not, it is an or­der of the court that must be com­plied with,” he added.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad con­tin­ued the in­junc­tion grant­ed by his col­league in­clud­ing an or­der that all ev­i­dence col­lect­ed dur­ing the search should be de­liv­ered to the Supreme Court Reg­is­trar yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the or­der was com­plied with well ahead of the 3 pm dead­line.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad set dead­lines for the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther ev­i­dence and ad­journed the case to Ju­ly 15.

Guer­ra and Ramdeen were al­leged­ly at the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion seek­ing the re­lease of one of his ve­hi­cles that was seized as part of a sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tion when he was in­formed that the po­lice were at his San­gre Grande of­fice.

Up­on ar­rival at his of­fice, he re­port­ed­ly hand­ed over doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to his pay­roll.

He claimed that af­ter be­ing cleared by min­istry of­fi­cials, the se­nior of­fi­cer iden­ti­fied as Sgt Ra­jesh An­toine at­tempt­ed to in­ter­view him.

He claimed that the of­fi­cer ac­cused Ramdeen of at­tempt­ing to ob­struct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore tak­ing him to a se­clud­ed of­fice area which was guard­ed by a heav­i­ly armed and masked po­lice of­fi­cer.

“I am deeply trou­bled by the fact that I was left de­lib­er­ate­ly in­com­mu­ni­ca­do dur­ing the time that this search was be­ing con­duct­ed while the or­der of Madam Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams was ex­ist­ing and ex­tant,” he said.

“I am even more dis­turbed by the fact that I was de­lib­er­ate­ly de­prived of the ad­vice of my Coun­sel while the of­fi­cers in­ter­viewed me,” he added.

In the law­suit, Guer­ra is claim­ing that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached by the of­fi­cer.

He is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the of­fi­cer’s con­duct as well as com­pen­sa­tion.

He was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Dayadai Har­ri­paul. Adana Hosang ap­peared along­side Jaikaran for the State.