Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has been directed to release two parcels of land and millions of dollars in heavy equipment that were seized from two now-deceased aggregate processors, including murdered businessman Danny Guerra, over a decade ago.
Justice Robin Mohammed recently made the order as he upheld a lawsuit brought by Guerra and Mark Mohammed against the Commissioner of Police and the Office of the Attorney General.
Justice Mohammed also ordered compensation for trespass and wrongful detention which would be calculated by a High Court Master at a later date.
The compensation, which would be paid to the duo’s estates, is likely to be significant as both made claims based on the daily profits they would have earned from their operations had the police not taken the action since 2014.
According to the evidence in the case, Guerra was the lessee of a nine-acre parcel of land at Rio Grande, Sangre Grande, while Mohammed controlled five acres of land in Matura.
Both businessmen claimed that they did not perform quarrying on the sites and only used them to process aggregate sourced from legitimate quarries.
On September 22, 2014, a group of police officers led by Sgt Ishmael Pitt went to Guerra’s facility.
The officers took control of the facility and seized three excavators, six dump trucks and other heavy equipment used for aggregate processing.
A little over a week later, the same group of officers went to Mohammed’s facility and seized it (the property) and three excavators.
Responding to the lawsuit, Sgt Pitt claimed that he led a team of officers to Guerra and Mohammed’s facilities after he received information from the National Operations Centre that illegal quarrying was being carried out there.
He claimed that he seized the site and the equipment as workers at the facilities ran away into forested areas upon seeing him and his colleagues.
Pitt claimed that he later received information that aggregate illegally excavated from neighbouring State land was being processed and stored at the facilities.
He claimed that soil samples were taken from both sites and sent to the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) for testing.
He said that the sites and the equipment remained seized as the testing reports were required to complete the investigation.
In March, Guerra was murdered outside his Sangre Grande office. Mohammed died of natural causes while the case was still pending.
In determining the case, Justice Mohammed found that Sgt Pitt and his colleagues did not have reasonable and probable cause to enter the properties and effect the seizures without warrants.
He noted that Sgt Pitt’s hearsay evidence over the information that initiated the probe was insufficient to justify the seizures.
“To seize machinery or any goods without warrants requires urgent necessity to prevent destruction of the machinery or goods. Even if the pitrun was stolen from State lands, this did not justify the detention of the Claimants’ machinery,” Justice Mohammed said.
He also suggested that the duo’s staff conduct in running away did not justify the police’s actions.
“The mere act of running away does not create reasonable and probable cause,” he said.
In deciding whether the continued detention was lawful and necessary, Justice Mohammed found “startling” lack of diligence from Sgt Pitt and his colleagues.
“Having deprived the claimant of commercial equipment valued in millions of dollars, the police essentially sat on their hands,” he said.
“The entire investigation appears to have consisted of a single request to CARIRI for a forensic analysis of aggregate samples, after which they simply waited passively for the results,” he added.
Justice Mohammed also questioned the usefulness of the CARIRI testing.
“It ought to have been obvious to Sgt Pitt that a CARIRI report could not definitively prove the aggregate was illegally sourced from a specific parcel of State land without exhaustive comparative soil sampling from every other geographical region in Trinidad,” Justice Mohammed said.
He also ordered the State to pay the duo’s legal costs for pursuing the lawsuit.
Guerra was represented by Gerald Ramdeen, Darryl Heeralal and Joseph Sookoo. Mohammed was represented by Cedric Neptune, Aldric Neptune and Colin Cleghorn.
The State was represented by Neil Byam, Stefan Jaikaran and Nisa Simmons.
