Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has re­voked a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der (PDO) against a man from Cara­po, who was al­ready on re­mand when it was ex­e­cut­ed in Sep­tem­ber. 

The re­vo­ca­tion came late last week as Chris­t­ian “Heads” Joshua’s re­view of the or­der be­fore the three-mem­ber Re­view Tri­bunal un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency was still pend­ing. 

Joshua’s lawyer, Keron Ramkhal­whan of Ju­ris X Cham­bers, had ques­tioned the le­git­i­ma­cy of the PDO as he said Joshua had been de­nied bail for al­leged­ly steal­ing a car days be­fore the or­der was is­sued on Sep­tem­ber 6 and even­tu­al­ly ex­e­cut­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30. 

Ramkhal­whan al­so said Joshua’s PDO did not men­tion he was a pris­on­er, as was done with oth­er long-stand­ing re­man­dees, who were sub­ject­ed to PDOs based on al­le­ga­tions of en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal con­duct whilst in prison.  

In cor­re­spon­dence sent to the tri­bunal last week, at­tor­ney Jared Ja­groo from Free­dom Law Cham­bers, who is rep­re­sent­ing Alexan­der, claimed that it (the tri­bunal) did not need to fur­ther con­sid­er Joshua’s chal­lenge based on the re­vo­ca­tion.

“It is there­fore no longer nec­es­sary for the Tri­bunal to con­tin­ue with this mat­ter as it has been ren­dered aca­d­e­m­ic by ef­flux­ion of time, and we ask that the de­tainee con­firm the with­draw­al of his ap­pli­ca­tion for a re­view,” Ja­groo said. 

How­ev­er, Ja­groo said the po­si­tion on the PDO may change.

“The Min­is­ter re­serves the right to con­sid­er the need for any fur­ther pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion in re­spect to Mr Joshua in the event that the need aris­es un­der the Emer­gency Reg­u­la­tions,” Ja­groo said. 

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ramkhal­whan claimed the case high­light­ed is­sues with the is­su­ing of PDOs.

He ques­tioned whether PDOs were be­ing is­sued to bol­ster law en­force­ment sta­tis­tics dur­ing the SoE. 

“It is dif­fi­cult to fath­om how a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der could be is­sued against some­one al­ready in cus­tody af­ter be­ing de­nied bail,” Ramkhal­whan said, as he sug­gest­ed that it served no law­ful pur­pose. 

He al­so ques­tioned whether Alexan­der’s de­ci­sion to is­sue the PDO was based on him not be­ing pro­vid­ed with ac­cu­rate and up-to-date in­for­ma­tion. 

“These or­ders are be­ing used as sym­bol­ic ges­tures rather than gen­uine se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures,” he said.

He said Joshua of Si­mon Trace, Cara­po, would seek to reap­ply for bail dur­ing his next court hear­ing.

“A PDO can­not law­ful­ly be used to block or dis­cour­age a re­newed bail ap­pli­ca­tion,” he said. 

Un­der the reg­u­la­tions for the SoE, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter is em­pow­ered to is­sue such or­ders against peo­ple if he be­lieves such would pre­vent them from act­ing in any man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty. 

While the tri­bunal may make rec­om­men­da­tions on the lift­ing of such or­ders af­ter con­duct­ing a re­view, the min­is­ter is not com­pelled to ac­cept the tri­bunal’s ad­vice. 

Alexan­der was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Lester Chari­ah and Lemuel Mur­phy.