Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has con­ced­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers act­ed il­le­gal­ly in their con­tro­ver­sial ar­rest of firearm deal­er Brent Thomas in Bar­ba­dos and his sub­se­quent re­turn to this coun­try in Oc­to­ber 2022.

The ad­mis­sion was made by lawyers for the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al as they pre­sent­ed sub­mis­sions in an ap­peal over a de­ci­sion by High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad to up­hold Thomas’ law­suit over his forced de­por­ta­tion and po­lice probe in­to him and his com­pa­ny, Spe­cial­ist Shoot­ers Train­ing Cen­tre Lim­it­ed.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing, King’s Coun­sel Pe­ter Knox claimed that the of­fi­cers’ un­law­ful ac­tions were based on a le­git­i­mate be­lief that Thomas was seek­ing to flee the coun­try while un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“They (the po­lice) act­ed wrong­ly, but they did not act ma­li­cious­ly,” Knox said. While he ac­cept­ed that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad was en­ti­tled to make the find­ings he did in re­la­tion to Thomas’ ar­rest and ex­tra­di­tion and or­der com­pen­sa­tion, he sug­gest­ed that they (the find­ings) should have been made against the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and not the State.

Knox claimed that the judge over­stepped in stay­ing the crim­i­nal charges against Thomas and mak­ing ad­verse find­ings in re­la­tion to the probe that led to the charges. Knox claimed that there was ev­i­dence that Thomas was found in pos­ses­sion of three pro­hib­it­ed au­to­mat­ic ri­fles and six non-lethal grenades, which led to him be­ing charged. He claimed that two of the ri­fles were list­ed on Thomas’ firearm user’s li­cence (FUL) but one was not.

“We are not say­ing this is con­clu­sive of any­thing, but there is some­thing to look at,” Knox said.

He sug­gest­ed that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad should have been more cau­tious to avoid tres­pass­ing on the pow­er of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in re­la­tion to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions.

“It is not for a con­sti­tu­tion­al court to in­ter­fere in mat­ters like this. You do not have the con­sti­tu­tion­al right not to be pros­e­cut­ed,” he said.

Knox al­so took is­sue with Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s find­ings in re­la­tion to a se­ries of search war­rants used to raid Thomas’ Mar­aval home and his busi­ness. He sug­gest­ed that Thomas’ lawyer should have filed the case against the Jus­tice of the Peace (JP) that grant­ed the war­rants.

DPP: Judge mis­con­strued Firearms Act

In his sub­mis­sions, Se­nior Coun­sel Ian Ben­jamin, who led the le­gal team for the DPP’s Of­fice, claimed that the judge mis­con­strued the Firearms Act when he ques­tioned how Thomas could be charged for pos­ses­sion of the weapons that he was grant­ed per­mis­sion to im­port by the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Ben­jamin point­ed out that un­der the leg­is­la­tion, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er did not have the pow­er to grant per­mis­sion to cit­i­zens for the im­por­ta­tion and pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons, which can on­ly be law­ful­ly held by po­lice of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF), cer­tain staff at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, and prison and cus­toms of­fi­cers.

He sug­gest­ed that Thomas had been wrong­ful­ly grant­ed per­mis­sion by suc­ces­sive com­mis­sion­ers in the past. “He (the judge) did not con­strue the pro­vi­sions at all ... There was no foun­da­tion or rea­son­ing,” Ben­jamin said. Ben­jamin stat­ed that there was a strong pub­lic in­ter­est in al­low­ing the charges against Thomas to pro­ceed.

“I do not have to say any­thing about the hav­oc caused by guns and am­mu­ni­tion in T&T,” he said.

Ho­sein: My client should not have been pros­e­cut­ed

In his sub­mis­sions, Thomas’ lawyer, Fyard Ho­sein, called on the ap­peal pan­el to up­hold their col­league’s judg­ment. Ho­sein ad­mit­ted that the com­mis­sion­er did not have the pow­er to al­low the im­por­ta­tion and pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons, as he point­ed out that his client re­fused to re­ceive the ri­fles and grenades af­ter Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered their re­lease, last year.

He sug­gest­ed that his client should not have been pros­e­cut­ed for the le­gal loop­hole that was used by five po­lice com­mis­sion­ers to get him to sup­ply weapons and am­mu­ni­tion to lo­cal law en­force­ment agen­cies for al­most two decades. Ho­sein not­ed that the ri­fles and grenades, which he claimed were all list­ed on the FUL’s held by Thomas and his busi­ness, were kept for demon­stra­tion pur­pos­es.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that in­stead of pros­e­cut­ing him, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors could have re­quest­ed that the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er re­voke the im­port li­cence and FUL records for the weapons and seize them.

Deal­ing with Thomas’ de­ten­tion in Bar­ba­dos, Ho­sein claimed that the find­ings had to be made against the State as the AG’s of­fice failed to dis­close whether any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial as­sist­ed or fa­cil­i­tat­ed his forced re­turn to T&T.

“We do not know who is tru­ly re­spon­si­ble for this ghast­ly deed,” he said. He not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers were aware that Thomas had trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos in tran­sit to the Unit­ed States to seek med­ical at­ten­tion when they took the ac­tion. Re­fer­ring to sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al cas­es in which pros­e­cu­tions for se­ri­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing ter­ror­ism, were stayed due to sim­i­lar il­le­gal ex­tra­di­tions, Ho­sein sug­gest­ed that the judge was right to halt the case against Thomas.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, in Au­gust 2022, TTPS of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a se­ries of search war­rants on Thomas. He was ini­tial­ly de­tained by lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers on Sep­tem­ber 29 but was re­leased sev­er­al days lat­er af­ter High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held a law­suit over the in­abil­i­ty of the TTPS to jus­ti­fy his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion

The fol­low­ing day, Thomas trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos to vis­it his spe­cial­ist doc­tor. On Oc­to­ber 5, he was ar­rest­ed by heav­i­ly armed Bar­ba­dos po­lice at his ho­tel room. Thomas was briefly de­tained be­fore be­ing trans­port­ed to the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he was hand­ed over to ASP Birch and an­oth­er of­fi­cer, who had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­e­cut­ed some of the search war­rants on his busi­ness and home.

Thomas was re­turned to Trinidad on a light air­craft sub­se­quent­ly linked to the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices (RSS) and was charged with sev­en firearm of­fences re­lat­ed to the ri­fles and grenades un­der cor­re­spond­ing ar­rest war­rants.

The Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment has al­so ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty for the role of its of­fi­cials in­volved in Thomas’ ar­rest. In late April last year, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad up­held Thomas’ case. He or­dered com­pen­sa­tion for the breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and for his il­le­gal ar­rest and de­ten­tion.

A date for the as­sess­ment of the com­pen­sa­tion is yet to be set, with such like­ly to take place on­ly if Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s judg­ment is up­held on ap­peal.

Ap­pel­late judges Prakash Moo­sai, Char­maine Pem­ber­ton, and Mi­ra Dean Ar­mor­er re­served their de­ci­sion on the ap­peal af­ter yes­ter­day’s hear­ing. Thomas was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Anil Maraj and Aadam Ho­sein. Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and Vanes­sa Gopaul ap­peared along­side Knox for the State.