Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says the Gov­ern­ment will rein­tro­duce the Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill and in­sists it will pass even with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) in the Par­lia­ment, Sturge said the leg­is­la­tion would re­turn to the House and dis­missed sug­ges­tions that amend­ments would be con­sid­ered.

“ZOSO com­ing back,” Sturge said. “And when it comes back, I want to see what you go do… no amend­ment, doh both­er with that.

“It’s go­ing to pass whether you like it or not next time,” Sturge said.

He added that the mea­sure would pass re­gard­less of re­sis­tance from the Op­po­si­tion.

But Op­po­si­tion MP for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West, Stu­art Young, warned that the state­ment amount­ed to a threat against the pop­u­la­tion.

Young told the House that cit­i­zens should not be pres­sured with re­peat­ed emer­gency pow­ers if leg­is­la­tion is re­ject­ed.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Sturge al­so ref­er­enced the 2014 mur­der of Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, ar­gu­ing that past au­thor­i­ties failed to act de­ci­sive­ly de­spite in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing threats to her life.

“Dana See­ta­hal al­so knew she was go­ing to get killed,” Sturge said, claim­ing law en­force­ment at the time re­lied on sur­veil­lance rather than pre­ven­ta­tive ac­tion.

“They lis­tened, and they lis­tened, and they lis­tened, and now she’s not here.”

Young im­me­di­ate­ly ob­ject­ed, re­mind­ing the House that See­ta­hal was mur­dered in 2014 while the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion was in gov­ern­ment and warn­ing against sug­ges­tions that min­is­ters had ac­cess to in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

“That hap­pened un­der a UNC gov­ern­ment,” Young said, adding that un­der the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, on­ly the Di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Chief of De­fence Staff can au­tho­rise in­ter­cepts.

“Min­is­ters do not get in­volved in in­ter­cepts,” Young told the cham­ber.

Sturge, how­ev­er, de­fend­ed the use of emer­gency pow­ers and pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion, say­ing the mea­sures are in­tend­ed to stop vi­o­lence be­fore it oc­curs.

Young coun­tered that the de­bate demon­strat­ed what he de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s re­liance on emer­gency pow­ers rather than a broad­er crime strat­e­gy.

“It is clear to­day… the on­ly plan that the UNC has for fight­ing crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty is states of emer­gency,” he said.