Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A day af­ter at­tor­neys for one of two men held in con­nec­tion to the rob­bery of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh threat­ened to sue Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the man has been re­leased from cus­tody.

Adi­ta Ram­du­lar, a le­gal of­fi­cer at­tached to the Po­lice Ser­vice Le­gal Unit, sent an email to de­fence at­tor­ney Aaron Lewis of For­tis Cham­bers yes­ter­day in­form­ing him that in­struc­tions had been giv­en to re­lease the sus­pect. Lewis had giv­en the po­lice un­til 6 pm yes­ter­day to re­lease his client or be served le­gal ac­tion.

In the email sent out at 6.06 pm, Ram­du­lar said, “I am in­struct­ed that your client is go­ing to be re­leased. Please be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Lewis wrote to the po­lice on Sat­ur­day ask­ing for an up­date on his client who had been in cus­tody since Wednes­day.

He said his client was ques­tioned by three po­lice of­fi­cers about a ve­hi­cle sup­pos­ed­ly used as the get­away ve­hi­cle in the rob­bery. Af­ter an­swer­ing four ques­tions, the of­fi­cers left and re­turned the day af­ter.

“On the 18th day of Sep­tem­ber 2024, four po­lice of­fi­cers vis­it­ed our client’s home at 10 pm. He was told to wear a jer­sey and change his pants be­cause they were tak­ing him to the po­lice sta­tion. He was in­formed that he was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the of­fence of rob­bery, which oc­curred on the 17th day of Sep­tem­ber 2024” Lewis wrote.

Ram­du­lar asked Lewis not to file the habeas cor­pus. A habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion, once filed, forces the po­lice to ei­ther re­lease a sus­pect or charge them with an of­fence.

Deyals­ingh, 66, was sit­ting out­side Nyabinghi Bar at the cor­ner of Aber­crom­by and King Streets, St Joseph, at 4.55 pm last Tues­day when two men walked up to him. One of them placed a gun to his head and de­mand­ed that he hand over a gold be­ra.

A day af­ter the be­ra was stolen, DCP Suzette Mar­tin warned the cul­prits, “We’re com­ing for you.”

Hours lat­er two men were held in con­nec­tion with the rob­bery.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) went to St Paul Street a day af­ter the rob­bery and saw a blue Hyundai Elantra which they be­lieve was used as the get­away ve­hi­cle. They in­ter­cept­ed the car and held two male sus­pects who were lat­er hand­ed over to St Joseph po­lice.

The swift ac­tion by po­lice was crit­i­cised by op­po­si­tion MPs who called on the po­lice to ex­er­cise the same care for oth­er vic­tims of crime.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said, “There seems to be a spe­cial type of re­sponse that is giv­en to crimes when it comes to PNM of­fi­cials and their friends and fam­i­lies. That is un­for­tu­nate.”

Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee agreed.

“We won­der if the nor­mal cit­i­zen­ry could get that swift ac­tion that min­is­ters seem to get,” he said.

In de­fence, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce said there was no pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

“I don’t want to join the band­wag­on in terms of say­ing be­cause it’s the min­is­ter or any­thing. I just feel that be­ing a pub­lic per­son, you have more peo­ple say­ing things. That way in­for­ma­tion is eas­i­er shared. Some­times some­thing will hap­pen in the con­stituen­cy and no­body not say­ing any­thing but be­cause of who what­ev­er hap­pened to, it is a neg­a­tive and it is a pos­i­tive in both ways,” he said.