Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Cana­di­an vlog­ger Chris “Chris Must List” Hugh­es re­mained in cus­tody yes­ter­day, as­sist­ing po­lice in in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to gang ac­tiv­i­ties.

Hugh­es was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) on Tues­day morn­ing, days be­fore he was sched­uled to leave for Guyana.

Dur­ing his stay in T&T, Hugh­es has record­ed in­ter­views in Tu­na­puna, Bel­mont and East Port-of-Spain with men who are seen in the videos bran­dish­ing guns, al­though none of them claimed to be gang­sters.

Po­lice said he was de­tained in con­nec­tion with pos­si­ble gang af­fil­i­a­tions. They are al­so look­ing in­to his im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus, as he was work­ing while claim­ing to be on va­ca­tion.

In a leaked con­ver­sa­tion with his at­tor­ney Criston Williams, Hugh­es said he was on­ly ques­tioned about gang ac­tiv­i­ties and was told by po­lice of­fi­cers that they were just fol­low­ing or­ders.

Williams said he was not al­lowed to vis­it his client around 1.30 pm yes­ter­day. Po­lice of­fi­cers told him Hugh­es was be­ing in­ter­viewed. He said he would at­tempt to get him re­leased from cus­tody to­day through a habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion.

Hugh­es was sup­posed to leave for Guyana on Tues­day but stayed for three more days to vis­it oth­er ar­eas.
Of­fi­cials at the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Port-of-Spain have re­port­ed­ly said they were aware of Hugh­es’ ar­rest and are help­ing where need­ed.

Po­lice sources said Hugh­es’ ques­tion­ing be­gan at mid­day on Tues­day and they need­ed more time to com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pre­pare a file for the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Fel­low vlog­ger, Is­raeli Chana Chen Micha, who goes by the name Co­co Girl, al­so tried to vis­it Hugh­es but had to set­tle for hand­ing over a bag of clothes to Williams for him. She ap­pealed for his re­lease, say­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is look­ing on in dis­may.

Micha said she had known Hugh­es for some time and he had nev­er been ar­rest­ed in any of the oth­er coun­tries he vis­it­ed. How­ev­er, there are so­cial me­dia re­ports that he was de­port­ed from So­ma­lia and was ar­rest­ed in Cu­ba for fly­ing a drone with­out ap­proval.

Asked about his ar­rest and how oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al vlog­gers feel, Micha said, “We can­not ac­cept it. Every­body is talk­ing about it. It should not be like this. It should be a warn­ing or some­thing, talk with him to delete some things. But like that, treat him like that? No!”

In an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew on Mon­day, Hugh­es said he no­ticed that lo­cal gang mem­bers com­mon­ly de­scribed them­selves as a ‘fam­i­ly’ or ‘or­gan­i­sa­tion’.

“Un­like any oth­er coun­try I’ve ever been to in my life, there are a few words that are used. Love, peace, stig­ma over and over again. I’ve nev­er seen it. It’s al­most like every­one came to­geth­er and re­hearsed what to say and it’s amaz­ing to me,” he said.