Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve and her aunt Star Sab­ga are still seek­ing the dis­clo­sure of an unedit­ed copy of an in­ter­cept­ed tele­phone call that led to them be­ing held on Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) dur­ing the re­cent­ly com­plet­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE).

The is­sue arose as the trio’s law­suits over their de­ten­tions came up for case man­age­ment be­fore Jus­tice Vigel Paul yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

The trio’s lawyer, Dou­glas Mendes, SC, claimed that he and his col­leagues have on­ly pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived ex­tracts of the record­ing from State at­tor­neys.

“Un­less you ex­plain why it should not be dis­closed, we are en­ti­tled to it,” Mendes said.

“It is a cru­cial piece of ev­i­dence. The en­tire case turns on this record­ing,” he added.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions on be­half of the State, at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen called on Mendes to wait un­til his client files its ev­i­dence in the cas­es ear­ly next month as the full record­ing may be in­clud­ed.

Jus­tice Paul agreed, as he said he would con­sid­er sub­mis­sions on the is­sue if the record­ing is not in­clud­ed in the State’s ev­i­dence.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Ramdeen ob­ject­ed to an ap­pli­ca­tion from the trio for Hadeed and Sab­ga’s doc­tors to be deemed ex­perts and pro­vide ev­i­dence over their cur­rent med­ical con­di­tion af­ter they were re­leased from cus­tody.

Mendes stat­ed that the doc­tors’ pre­vi­ous ev­i­dence re­lat­ed to the duo’s med­ical con­di­tions while be­ing de­tained in prison.

Jus­tice Paul gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of sub­mis­sions and promised to rule on the is­sue on De­cem­ber 18.

The trio was de­tained un­der PDOs in late June based on pur­port­ed in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

The rel­a­tives were ac­cused of con­spir­ing to­geth­er to al­leged­ly as­sas­si­nate key gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The Hadeeds’ bid for in­ter­im re­lease was ini­tial­ly blocked by Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad be­fore be­ing up­held by a pan­el of the Court of Ap­peal, which took is­sue with the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion put for­ward by Alexan­der for their de­ten­tion on the PDOs.

An­oth­er Court of Ap­peal pan­el led by Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh stayed their col­leagues’ find­ings pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

The SoE Re­view Tri­bunal then rec­om­mend­ed the trio’s re­lease from de­ten­tion.

The PDOs against the Hadeeds were even­tu­al­ly dropped af­ter the Privy Coun­cil in­di­cat­ed that it could on­ly hear the State’s ap­peal lat­er this month. The stay was main­ly based on the ap­peal be­ing heard by the coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court with­in two weeks.

In late Ju­ly, Jus­tice Paul agreed to place Sab­ga on the house ar­rest con­di­tions that were set by the ini­tial Ap­peal Court pan­el for the Hadeeds.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the AG’s Of­fice ap­pealed the rul­ing but lat­er dis­con­tin­ued the chal­lenge.

The PDO against Sab­ga was even­tu­al­ly lift­ed short­ly be­fore the SoE end­ed last month.

The rel­a­tives are cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a sub­stan­tive law­suit chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tion and al­leg­ing that they are be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment based on their eth­nic­i­ty, and a sep­a­rate le­gal chal­lenge from the Hadeeds over a move to ter­mi­nate their leas­es for State land.

They are claim­ing that their ar­rests came af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, made veiled threats di­rect­ed at them while ad­dress­ing a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate on ex­tend­ing the SoE.

They have al­so raised is­sues with the grounds used for their de­ten­tion, as state­ments al­leged­ly made by Sab­ga in an in­ter­cept­ed con­ver­sa­tion with Genevieve were wrong­ly at­trib­uted to Hadeed in his PDO.

The Hadeeds are al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pe­gus, Dhar­men­dra Pun­wasee, Jerome Ra­j­coomar and Car­lon Mc Leod.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice, Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the TTPS are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dayadai Har­ri­paul and ASP Ram­dath Phillip.