Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $650,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to six mem­bers of a fam­i­ly, who were ma­li­cious­ly pros­e­cut­ed for mar­i­jua­na, firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a raid on their home in late 2019.

In Jan­u­ary last year, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty in the law­suits brought by Wafiq, Sid­diq, Mustapha, Jen­nifer, Ami­rah Khan and Kemil­ly Garib-Khan over them be­ing pros­e­cut­ed.

Last Mon­day, High Court Mas­ter Rish­ma Ram­rat­tan as­sessed the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to each of the fam­i­ly mem­bers.

The law­suits pur­sued by the rel­a­tives re­lat­ed to a raid on their home at Or­ange Field Road, Cara­pichaima, on No­vem­ber 8, 2019.

The rel­a­tives were alert­ed by their neigh­bour that a group of men dressed in black and armed with firearms en­tered their prop­er­ty by scal­ing a wall.

One of the men spoke to the rel­a­tives through a locked door and claimed to be a po­lice of­fi­cer but did not iden­ti­fy him­self with a po­lice iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

He told them that he would “mash up” the door un­less they opened it.

The rel­a­tives com­plied and the men con­duct­ed a search of their prop­er­ty. They al­leged­ly found a box out­side the build­ing, which con­tained two rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na.

Ami­rah, Wafiq and Sid­diq were ar­rest­ed and tak­en to a po­lice sta­tion, where they were charged with the of­fences.

Their three rel­a­tives were not ar­rest­ed but were joint­ly charged and all six ap­peared in court.

A month lat­er, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) is­sued a no­tice of dis­con­tin­u­ance against all six rel­a­tives, lead­ing to the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in the Mag­is­trates’ Court be­ing dis­con­tin­ued.

Deal­ing with sib­lings Wafiq and Sid­diq Khan, Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan or­dered $60,000 in dam­ages for false im­pris­on­ment and $75,000 in dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion for each of them.

Ami­rah re­ceived slight­ly more com­pen­sa­tion based on the treat­ment she re­ceived when she was ar­rest­ed. She was grant­ed $90,000 for false im­pris­on­ment and $80,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan not­ed that she suf­fered a pan­ic at­tack while be­ing de­tained be­fore be­ing charged as she not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers mis­placed her med­ica­tion, which was sup­plied by rel­a­tives.

“The claimant pro­vid­ed ad­e­quate ev­i­dence to prove there were ag­gra­vat­ing fea­tures in this case re­gard­ing the con­di­tions of de­ten­tion, the claimant was de­nied med­ica­tion even though the same was pre­scribed, she felt she was treat­ed in­hu­mane and her dig­ni­ty was neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, her in­abil­i­ty to clean her­self af­fect­ed her abil­i­ty to prac­tice her re­li­gion,” Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan said.

She al­so not­ed that when she ini­tial­ly de­nied bail and re­mand­ed to the Gold­en Grove State Prison, she was re­quired to strip naked in a room full of oth­er women while her body was ex­am­ined and the marks on her skin were count­ed.

“There were strangers that ran their hands through her hair, caus­ing her ex­treme em­bar­rass­ment, dis­tress and vi­o­la­tion of her per­son­al and re­li­gious dig­ni­ty,” Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan said.

Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan or­dered $75,000 in dam­ages for Mustapha and Jen­nifer Khan, and Garib-Khan, who were not ar­rest­ed or re­mand­ed but were al­so charged.

She or­dered in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion award­ed and di­rect­ed the State to pay their le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the law­suits.

The rel­a­tives were rep­re­sent­ed by Ster­ling John and Can­dice Guer­ra. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Shali­ni Singh, Keron May­nard, Ronelle Hinds, Krys­ta Jal­im, Niquelle Grandville-Nel­son, Vin­cent Jar­dine, Kristyn Lewis, Ja­nine Joseph and Lau­ra Per­sad.