AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) have un­til 4 pm to­day to for­mal­ly charge or re­lease a den­tist who was ar­rest­ed last week, af­ter he was sus­pect­ed of re­ceiv­ing a ran­som pay­ment con­nect­ed to the kid­nap­ping of Jankie Satie Karim.

The habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion, which was filed in the High Court yes­ter­day by at­tor­neys Shi­va Boodoo and Rosh­ni Balka­ran, was heard by Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in, who in­struct­ed the AKU of­fi­cers to act ei­ther way.

She al­so or­dered the of­fi­cers to re­lo­cate the den­tist from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion to an­oth­er lo­ca­tion, on the premise that he was be­ing sub­ject­ed to “in­hu­mane con­di­tions.”

The le­gal team ar­gued that the den­tist, who was ar­rest­ed last Thurs­day, was un­law­ful­ly de­tained long af­ter the 72-hour lim­it with­out any charges be­ing laid.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Gob­in heard from at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro that of­fi­cers re­quired ad­di­tion­al time to con­duct a thor­ough and prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing this, even as they set aside this ar­gu­ment, the den­tist’s le­gal team main­tained their client’s con­tin­ued de­ten­tion be­yond the statu­to­ry pe­ri­od, with­out any charges be­ing laid, was a vi­o­la­tion of his rights.

This lat­est de­vel­op­ment fol­lowed on the heels of the ar­rest and sub­se­quent charg­ing of 21-year-old Le­an­dro Mo­hans­ingh in con­nec­tion with Karim’s kid­nap­ping. The To­co woman was for­mal­ly charged on Sat­ur­day, fol­low­ing sev­er­al days in po­lice cus­tody.

At­tor­ney Keron Ramkhal­wan had al­so filed a habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion in that in­stance, as he said the woman had been in cus­tody since Ju­ly 21, af­ter of­fi­cers stormed a house at Ram­panal­gas, Matu­ra, To­co, and res­cued the kid­napped woman.

Mo­hans­ingh’s male com­pan­ion was killed by po­lice dur­ing the res­cue on Ju­ly 21, while a sec­ond man, al­so be­lieved to be in­volved in the Karim kid­nap­ping, was killed hours lat­er by po­lice at his Pi­ar­co home.

Karim, 44, a moth­er of one, was snatched by armed men as she head­ed to her home at Anoop Street, Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, Spring Vil­lage, Val­sayn, on Ju­ly 13.