Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing one of two men held in re­la­tion to the rob­bery of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh are pe­ti­tion­ing the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to have him re­leased im­me­di­ate­ly. 

In an email cor­re­spon­dence be­tween Aaron Lewis and Adi­ta Ram­du­lar, a le­gal of­fi­cer at­tached to the Po­lice Ser­vice Le­gal Unit, Lewis re­quest­ed that his client be re­leased. 

“We con­tend that the de­ten­tion and con­tin­u­ous de­ten­tion of our client is un­law­ful, ar­bi­trary and un­rea­son­able,” Lewis wrote adding that the con­tin­u­ous de­ten­tion of his client is against his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. 

Lewis said on Sep­tem­ber 17, his client was ques­tioned by three po­lice of­fi­cers about a ve­hi­cle sup­pos­ed­ly used as the get­away ve­hi­cle in the rob­bery. Af­ter an­swer­ing four ques­tions, the of­fi­cers left and re­turned the day af­ter. 

“Four po­lice of­fi­cers vis­it­ed our client’s home at 10 pm. He was told to wear a jer­sey and change his pants be­cause they were tak­ing him to the po­lice sta­tion. He was in­formed that he was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the of­fence of rob­bery.” 

The fol­low­ing day he was tak­en to the St Joseph where he was in­ter­viewed for an hour. 

Lewis first raised the threat of a habeas cor­pus on Sep­tem­ber 21. In re­sponse, Ram­du­lar asked Lewis not to file the habeas cor­pus as he sought in­struc­tions on how to pro­ceed. 

A habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion, once filed, usu­al­ly forces the po­lice to ei­ther re­lease a sus­pect or charge them with an of­fence. 

On Sep­tem­ber 17, Deyals­ingh, 66, was sit­ting out­side Nyabinghi Bar at the cor­ner of Aber­crom­by and King Streets, St Joseph, at 4.55 pm when two men walked up. One of them placed a gun to his head and de­mand­ed that he hand over his gold be­ra. 

A day af­ter the be­ra was stolen, DCP Suzette Mar­tin warned the cul­prits, say­ing, “We’re com­ing for you,” and hours lat­er two men were held in re­la­tion to the rob­bery. 

Po­lice said of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) went to St Paul Street, a day af­ter the rob­bery, where they saw a blue Hyundai Elantra which they be­lieve was used as the get­away ve­hi­cle. 

Po­lice in­ter­cept­ed the car and held two male sus­pects, who were lat­er hand­ed over to St Joseph po­lice, who are con­tin­u­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

The sup­posed swift ac­tion by po­lice was crit­i­cised by op­po­si­tion MPs who called on the po­lice to ex­er­cise the same care for oth­er vic­tims of crime.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, MP for Oropouche West, who is the shad­ow Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, said, “There seems to be a spe­cial type of re­sponse that is giv­en to crimes when it comes to PNM of­fi­cials and their friends and fam­i­lies. That is un­for­tu­nate.”

Point-a-Pierre MP David Lee agreed, say­ing: “We won­der if the nor­mal cit­i­zen­ry could get that swift ac­tion that min­is­ters seem to get?”

In de­fence, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce said there was no pref­er­en­tial treat­ment adding that po­lice would have re­ceived in­for­ma­tion in this case.

“I don’t want to join the band­wag­on in terms of say­ing be­cause it’s the min­is­ter or any­thing. I just feel that be­ing a pub­lic per­son, you have more peo­ple say­ing things. That way in­for­ma­tion is eas­i­er shared. Some­times some­thing will hap­pen in the con­stituen­cy and no­body not say­ing any­thing but be­cause of who what­ev­er hap­pened to, it is a neg­a­tive and it is a pos­i­tive in both ways,” Leonce said.