OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Gun deal­er Luke Hadeed has been award­ed more than half a mil­lion dol­lars, af­ter su­ing the State over the search of his home, busi­ness and par­ents’ home. 

Last Fri­day, Hadeed, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of AE Tac­ti­cal, walked in­to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing to as­sist in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the pro­cure­ment of two sniper ri­fles.  

Hadeed is the gun deal­er who was se­lect­ed to im­port the two guns. 

How­ev­er, Hadeed had al­so filed a ju­di­cial re­view claim which chal­lenged the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) ex­e­cu­tion of search war­rants at his busi­ness, As­ton En­ter­pris­es, which op­er­ates AE Tac­ti­cal in Trinci­ty, his home in Point Cumana and his par­ents’ res­i­dence.  

High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan gave an oral de­ci­sion last De­cem­ber and de­liv­ered her writ­ten judg­ment yes­ter­day. She ruled that while the ini­tial search on Oc­to­ber 8, 2022, was law­ful, sub­se­quent search­es on Oc­to­ber 10, 11, 12, 15, and 17, 2022, were un­law­ful, as they were con­duct­ed af­ter the war­rant had ex­pired.  

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the judg­ment, Hadeed’s at­tor­ney, Om Lal­la, said his client won a case that is now a land­mark rul­ing for T&T and the Caribbean.  

“The court, in a sig­nif­i­cant rul­ing, de­ter­mined that every search con­duct­ed af­ter the ini­tial law­ful search would re­sult in the State pay­ing $100,000 per search. This ap­plies to five search­es con­duct­ed on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, and 17th, to­talling $500,000.”  

Lal­la said the de­ci­sion will send a strong mes­sage about po­lice mis­con­duct. 

“While it is not un­usu­al for the po­lice to de­fend cas­es, it is alarm­ing that any of­fi­cer would mis­use a search war­rant on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions, lose con­trol of the premis­es, and re­peat the process in a clear abuse of pow­er—ac­tions deemed both ma­li­cious and in­dica­tive of bad faith.” 

Hadeed is one of sev­er­al firearm deal­ers in­ves­ti­gat­ed as part of a probe in­to the TTPS’ Firearms Unit, af­ter for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s three-year con­tract end­ed in 2021. 

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, launched in 2022, led to for­mer mem­bers of the unit be­ing charged with crim­i­nal of­fences, in­clud­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, in re­la­tion to an al­leged FUL vari­a­tion rack­et.  

About the judg­ment, Lal­la said, “Be­yond the fi­nan­cial penal­ty, this case serves as a crit­i­cal re­minder of the du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of law en­force­ment. Po­lice of­fi­cers must act in ac­cor­dance with the law, and when they fail to do so, in­di­vid­u­als have the right to seek jus­tice through the courts.”  

Quin­lan found that the sec­ond named de­fen­dant in the law­suit, Sgt Matthew Hay­wood, act­ed in bad faith when ob­tain­ing and ex­e­cut­ing the war­rant, in­tend­ing to harm the claimant’s rep­u­ta­tion. The court al­so ruled that the po­lice un­law­ful­ly seized three mag­a­zines and 20 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, which must be re­turned to the claimant.  

Lal­la said if the State choos­es to ap­peal it would be a mis­guid­ed de­ci­sion but not­ed that he has seen judg­ments ap­pealed “sim­ply for the sake of ap­peal­ing,” re­sult­ing in a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. 

The court al­so or­dered the State to pay Hadeed’s le­gal costs amount­ing to $135,348.50.  

Re­gard­ing the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Lal­la said his client as­sist­ed with the mat­ter last week by sur­ren­der­ing to the po­lice on Jan­u­ary 31.   

Hadeed, ac­com­pa­nied by Lal­la, pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal doc­u­ments to as­sist in that in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Lal­la said his client was nei­ther a sus­pect nor a per­son of in­ter­est in the mat­ter.