Senior Reporter
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) and the Office of the Attorney General have agreed to withdraw their appeal against a judge’s decision to place 69-year-old cheese maker Star Sabga under house arrest after she spent several weeks in detention under a Preventive Detention Order (PDO).
Attorneys representing the TTPS and the Attorney General’s Office indicated their position via email yesterday afternoon.
Guardian Media understands that while the State has agreed to discontinue the appeal, it has left it to the Court of Appeal to determine whether Sabga should be awarded legal costs for defending the matter.
Last Friday, Appellate Judge Carla Brown-Antoine granted the State time to consider the future of the appeal, noting that it had effectively become academic following Sabga’s release.
The hearing took place hours after Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander exercised his discretion to revoke the PDO, bringing Sabga’s detention at her Westmoorings apartment to an end. Sabga, along with her niece Genevieve Hadeed and Genevieve’s husband, Dominic Hadeed, was detained under PDOs in late June during the ongoing State of Emergency (SoE), based on intelligence reportedly gathered by the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).
The relatives were accused of conspiring to assassinate senior government officials.
The Hadeeds’ initial bid for interim release was rejected by Justice Frank Seepersad but later upheld by a panel of the Court of Appeal, which questioned the justification advanced by Alexander for their continued detention under the PDOs.
However, another Court of Appeal panel, led by Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh, stayed that ruling pending the outcome of the State’s final appeal before the United Kingdom-based Privy Council.
The SoE Review Tribunal subsequently recommended the trio’s release.
The PDOs against the Hadeeds were eventually withdrawn after the Privy Council indicated that it would not hear the State’s appeal until October. The stay had been granted largely on the basis that the appeal would be heard by the country’s highest appellate court within two weeks.
In late July, High Court Judge Vigel Paul ordered that Sabga be placed under the same house arrest conditions previously imposed by the initial Court of Appeal panel in relation to the Hadeeds. The TTPS and the Attorney General’s Office subsequently challenged that decision.
Sabga and the Hadeeds are now pursuing a substantive constitutional claim challenging their detention. They allege that they have been targeted by the Government because of their ethnicity and because of separate legal proceedings brought by the Hadeeds over attempts to terminate their leases for State-owned land.
They contend that their arrests followed what they describe as veiled threats made by Attorney General John Jeremie, during a parliamentary debate on extending the SoE.
The claimants have also challenged the grounds for their detention, arguing that statements allegedly made by Sabga during an intercepted conversation with Genevieve Hadeed were incorrectly attributed to Dominic Hadeed in his PDO.
The substantive matter is scheduled to be heard on October 19.
Sabga and the Hadeeds are represented by Douglas Mendes, SC, Gilbert Peterson, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Faris Al-Rawi, SC, Chase Pegus, Dharmendra Punwasee, Jerome Rajkumar and Carlon McLeod.
The Attorney General’s Office and the TTPS are represented by British King’s Counsel Sir James Eadie, Gerald Ramdeen, Dayadai Harripaul and ASP Ramdath Phillip.
