While Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi is proposing legislation to rectify the debacle caused by the short-lived judicial appointment of former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, a group of men whose murder case was affected, staged a silent protest yesterday.

Chicki Portello, Kareem Gomez, Levi Joseph, Anthony Charles and Israel “Arnold” Lara protested as they reappeared before acting Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning.

The men and a large group of their relatives, who were present for the hearing, were all dressed in matching white T-shirts bearing the slogans: “Freedom. We are innocent. We want to go home. Set us free. We want justice.”

The group, charged with the same murder, was responsible for a minor riot at the courthouse in April after they learned that their case, which was left unfinished by Ayers-Caesar, may have to be restarted. While they were outspoken at hearings held subsequent to their violent outburst, the accused men were silent during yesterday’s hearing and spoke through their attorney Criston J Williams.

During yesterday’s hearing, a representative from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) indicated that it had gotten the transcript of the group’s case and that DPP Roger Gaspard, SC, was yet to make a determination on how it should proceed. Gaspard is also yet to make an announcement on his decision in relation to the other 51 cases left unfinished by Ayers-Caesar.

Williams suggested that DPP utilise Section 23 (8) c of the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act which gives him the power to prefer an indictment where a magistrate has heard evidence and is unable to complete the inquiry due to physical or mental infirmary, resignation, retirement or death. The group’s case was adjourned to August 2. Al-Rawi is reportedly currently doing consultations on a Miscellaneous Provisions (Summary Courts and Preliminary Enquiries) Bill 2017, which seeks to address the fallout caused by the Ayers-Caesar debacle.

According to a letter sent to Law Association president Douglas Mendes, SC, which was obtained by the T&T Guardian, the proposed bill seeks to widen the scope of the DPP’s power under the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act to include instances where a magistrate is unable to complete a preliminary enquiry for any reason.

“Further, where the DPP does not prefer a voluntary bill of indictment and a Magistrate is unable to complete a preliminary enquiry for any reason, the Bill seeks to create a power for another Magistrate to hold a new preliminary enquiry or continue the preliminary enquiry in the interest of justice and with consent of parties,” the letter to Mendes stated.

Ayers-Caesar was appointed a High Court Judge on April 12. She resigned within two weeks due to the public furore over the cases she left incomplete.

Ayers-Caesar originally provided a list to Chief Justice Ivor Archie stating there were 28 matters outstanding. An independent audit initiated by Archie revealed there were actually 52 part-heard matters.

The Judiciary held a stakeholder meeting and had announced that the cases would have be restarted. However, it later reversed its position saying that the decision rests with Gaspard. Ayers-Caesar had since sued Archie, the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) claiming that she was pressured to resign.

In her affidavit filed in the case last week, Ayers-Caesar said she did not intend to mislead Archie about the number of matters she had outstanding but was supplied her information by the Note Taking Unit of the Port of Spain Magistrates’ Court.

She also suggested that the cases could have been dealt with by other magistrates as done in the past.

The Government’s winding up petition for CL Financial (CLF) is set to be heard and determined in early September.

The date was decided as the petition came up for hearing yesterday before High Court Judge Kevin Ramcharan, hours after the Court of Appeal reversed his (Ramcharan) decision over the appointment of two provisional liquidators for the company. 

During the hearing at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, Ramcharan said he felt the case should be determined expeditiously.

“It is to the benefit of the company, the creditors and the shareholders that this matter does not go on longer than necessary,” Ramcharan said as he ruled that the case was appropriate to be heard during the Judiciary’s annual vacation, which ends in mid-September.

He said he was available for the first two weeks in September, but did not confirm the dates as attorneys for the shareholders asked for time to confer over their availability during that period.

In presenting brief submissions before Ramcharan, head of State’s legal team Deborah Peake, SC, claimed the petition could be determined within two days. However, she admitted the duration would depend on the nature and length of the shareholders’ submissions in opposition to the petition.

Even though there are several undetermined applications before Ramcharan to decide whether the shareholders have the right to make representations in the petition, he gave them dates to file their submissions under the proviso that the applications may eventually be determined in their favour in September.

The move was done to ensure all legal submissions are available to the court to prevent delays in September. If they are eventually denied permission their submissions would be ignored by the court.

The shareholders also have an appeal over whether the applications to join the case should have been heard by Ramcharan before he decided on the provisional liquidators last week. Their lawyer, Rachel Caesar, indicated that her clients were yet to decide whether the minor procedural appeal would be withdrawn in light of the Court of Appeal’s ruling on Tuesday and would do so by the end of the week.

The provisional liquidators selected by Government, Hugh Dickson and Marcus Wide of international accounting firm Grant Thornton, were present in court for yesterday’s hearing.

The Government made the application for provisional liquidators and a corresponding winding up petition for the insolvent company earlier this month, after the shareholders signalled their intention to change the composition of the board, which was government-controlled since the 2009 bailout of its subsidiary, Clico.

As a condition of the bailout, CLF, in its shareholder’s agreement with the government, agreed to honour its subsidiary’s debt and allow government to select four members, including the chairman, to its seven-member board. The agreement, which was renewed 17 times since being first signed, expired in August last year but the shareholders refused to sign a new deal.

The shareholders’ refusal was reportedly based on the failure of the Ministry of Finance to consider a proposal from independent auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which suggested that they be given control of the company and allowed to renegotiate the repayment arrangement for the $15 billion still owed to the Government. The Government reportedly rejected the plan as they were not convinced of its viability

CLF managing director Marlon Holder was fired by the company’s Government directors last month over his role in procuring the proposal. He has since sued the company for wrongful dismissal, with the lawsuit set for hearing in mid-September.

The shareholders are also claiming the company’s debt to the Government is inflated and the company is not insolvent, as is required for winding up proceedings.

As part of its ruling on the provisional liquidators, the Court of Appeal attached multiple conditions over their remit. The provisional liquidators will have less power than traditional liquidators, as cane only assess the company’s assets and ensure they are not disposed of pending the determination of the petition to wind up the company. Almost all of the decisions of the provisional liquidators will also have to be approved by the court.

If successful with the petition, the Government will then be able to appoint traditional liquidators who would seek to sell the company’s assets in order to repay Government and other creditors their debts.

Chief of the First Peoples Ricardo Bharath-Hernandez is calling for Government sponsorship amounting to $3 million to assist with the upcoming celebrations leading up to the holiday on October 13.

Bharath-Hernandez was speaking at a news conference hosted yesterday by the First Peoples at the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community Centre, Paul Mitchell Street, Arima.

There will be a week of activities for Heritage Week from October 8 to October 16.

Bharath-Hernandez said to assist there will be a series of fund-raising ventures inclusive of a barbecue, launching of specially designed stamps, buttons and T-shirts.

Bharath-Hernandez said the history of T&T written in history books is inaccurate and distorted.

“To make our presence more evident in this multicultural society,” he added.

He said there was a lack of education at the nation’s schools when it came to knowing about their history.

“The children say we know about how the Carib kill the Arawaks, blah, blah, blah....We had nine nations but there is an effort to have it (history) restructured and it is the first step,” he said.

Bharath-Hernandez said there were several books already published and they were in a process of continuing to educate others because there was a lack of knowledge of their history.

He said it was a most historic moment for the First Peoples of T&T as the State provided a platform for the whole nation to remember the indignities their people suffered.

“The First Peoples now have an equal opportunity as the others to speak of the genocide of several native races, the inhumane treatment of their ancestors and to remind the nation that their ancestors laid the first foundations towards the building of this country,” he said.

Bharath-Hernandez said their lands were taken away and presented as a gift to the newcomers with the First People being marginalised and dispossessed from the time of the European Conquest.

Carib Queen, Jennifer Cassar, said there was an incremental progress in having a holiday and the group had several interactions with this and previous administrations.

“We have been lobbying for years to get a public holiday in T&T but nobody wouldn’t want to give up their own and we settled for a one-off holiday this year,” she said.

Cassar said most people don’t identify with their ethnicity and term themselves “Spanish.”

“People have to be educated and sensitised hence the one-off holiday and we are doing that,” she said.

She said the First Peoples are now getting there and become aware that they are descents.

“We are not pure blood because there is mixed ethnicity and we will get there eventually. There are thousands of us but they have to be aware of who they are,” she said.

Donations can be made to the account #460800243402 at Republic Bank in Arima.

August 1: Canon blast at Calvary Hill and smoke ceremony at the Santa Rosa First People’s Centre, Paul Mitchell Street

August 9: Series of lectures at the University of T&T Indigenous Peoples Day Topic: Names and Places of First Peoples of Kairi. Speaker: Prof, Emeritus Brinsley Samaroo Venue: San Fernando Hill

August 12: Arima Borough Day Activities - First Peoples Display of Culture on the Streets of Arima.

August 14: Novena at the Santa Rosa Church, Woodford Street Arima. Parishioners will be given information about The First Peoples.

August 19: Back to Roots Programme at Caura Valley, Caura, which is special significance since this is one of the settlements where the First Peoples lived. 9.30 am. Mass, followed by Breakfast and visit to old Church Site

August 27: 9. a.m. Santa Rosa Church Service. Sacred Procession through the streets of Arima, followed by Santa Rosa First Peoples Festival at Park.

October 6: Results of DNA testing of the First Peoples of T&T, identification of their genealogical ancestry

October 9: Ancestral journey to Moruga

October 12: Smoke ceremony in front of the Red House St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain

August/September/October 2017 Lectures:

September 29: Final School activity in Arima. Drama presentation by Celebrated Poet and Playwright Pearl Eintou Springer. Other Cultural and Educational events.

On the heels of the killing of Jelani Martins at the hands of the police, Enterprise, Chaguanas residents are now claiming there is a “hit list” of names of people the police are targeting for execution.

However, Central Division Sr Supt Kenny Mc Intyre is categorically denying the claims, saying that police are not executioners and are there to “uphold the law.”

Speaking with the T&T Guardian during a telephone interview yesterday, a 26-year-old Enterprise man claimed his name and those of six others, including members of the Unruly Isis, were on the police hit list. He also claimed Martins’ name was on the list and said he was fearful for his life after Martins was killed by police last Friday.

The man, who is well known to the police but did not want to be identified, claimed on June 13 an attempt was made on his life by police and soldiers who were on patrol.

“I had now done washing and hanging out the clothes when the police called out to me and before I know it they began shooting at me and I had to run for my life,” the man claimed.

Since Martins’ killing, the man said he had gone into hiding.

“I had to move out of Enterprise because I afraid for my life,” the man said.

Asked how he got to know about the alleged hit list, the man said he was told by a soldier he trusts.

“The police have it and a soldier saw it and told another soldier who told me the names on the list, one of which has an x next to it,” the man said.

But when contacted for comment on the claim yesterday, Mc Intyre said he was familiar with the man but said he had no idea what he was talking about.

“He will say a lot of things. We don’t execute people, we are not in the execution business. We are upholding the law and if one breaks the law we will issue a warrant for arrest and arrest that person and if one wants to engage police in terms of a firearm, to do anybody harm or the police harm, we will respond appropriately,” Mc Intyre said.

Relatives of Roumelda ‘Twinkle” King said yesterday she suffered a life of abuse at the hands of the man who took her life.

King, 51, was chopped to death by her husband Hilton Gordon King, 55, while on her job site at Moriah yesterday morning.

The T&T Guardian understands that around 7.55 am, Roumelda, a worker with the Unemployment Relief Programmer (URP), was at her jobsite when her husband allegedly walked up to her in full view of her co-workers and started chopping her about her body with a cutlass. He later threw her over an embankment in some bushes and left the scene. He was later found dead in the bedroom of his house. A poisonous liquid was found close the body. Police believe he may have committed suicide.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Garfield Moore told reporters in Tobago yesterday that King had made several reports about her abuse and also had a protection order against her husband. He said the couple was also separated for some time.

Adding he believed the outcome could have been avoided, Moore said: “She would have made several reports, in fact there was a protection order from the court…We are saddened by the incident and we just want to send condolences to the family of both parties, because these are things that sometimes it happens and we can avoid these things.

“Maybe if we talk to one another and I am hoping the public itself would have known of these incidents, could send the information to us, that we can have some intervention methods to really prevent these things from happening.”

The T&T Guardian understands that the couple recently separated and Mrs King had moved out of the matrimonial home at Congo Hill, Moriah, last week.

The motive behind the killing is yet to be ascertained. However, friend of the couple, Wayne Bovell, said he was unaware they were facing marital problems

“Teeth and tongue does meet, but God never give a man what he can’t bear, but at the same time God doesn’t permit a man to take another man’s life … This outcome really baffled me,” Bovell told the T&T Guardian.

“I cried because me and he go deep, everybody knew what was going on…I telling you the honest truth, no I didn’t pick up any signs. If I did only pick up any signs I would have told him come let us go up the road… we were really close and it hurt me.”

Speaking to the media about the incident after visiting the scene to offer comfort to relatives, Assemblyman Sheldon Cunningham urged people to remain alert and be empathetic when violent domestic situations occur

“When there are serious issues we label people so much on the outside, because we don’t know what happened on the inside. Let us empathise with people, because people try to share their stories, but they don’t know who to share them to and sometimes you share them with people and you are not too sure what is going to be the result and as you can see the results of today, that he was able to take his wife’s life and his life,” he said.

Cunningham reminded that the Mediation Centre, medical, psychological and community social workers under the Division of Health Wellness and Family Development were available free of charge to resolve issues before going to the open court.

King was the second women attacked and killed so far this week. On Monday, Elizabeth Lewis was found nude and dead on her bed with her hands tied at her Old Valencia Road, Valencia home. It was initially thought that her throat slit, but an autopsy revealed she was raped and strangled, with the killer/s using her own dress as the weapon.

The murder toll for the year now stands at 280.

While the Government was given the green light to appoint joint provisional liquidators to preserve the assets of CL Financial (CLF) as its seeks to recover a $15 billion debt, it recently discovered that substantial profits from one of CLF’s subsidiaries—Angostura Ltd—had been transferred to a foreign company, creating a pool of funds outside of T&T.

This was revealed yesterday by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at a press conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, as he spoke on the CLF debacle, which is now before the court.

On Tuesday, the State was given the all clear by the court to appoint joint provisional liquidators to preserve the assets of CLF while it sought to recover the debt following its bailout of the conglomerate in 2009.

Yesterday, the PM said the Government had bailed out CLICO and CLF-related companies to the tune of more than $23 billion, but to date just about $7.5 billion had been repaid.

In the last week, Rowley said the Government had been silent on the issue due to the fact that it was in the courts.

Giving the recent history of the Angostura matter, Rowley said upon assuming office his Government started to inquire about CLF although they were told the matter had been settled.

“Because we knew that one of those companies, Angostura, was a profitable company and it must have been earning substantial sums of money. Somewhere along the line, this Government started to ask what was happening to the Angostura earnings?”

Up to a week ago, Rowley said Angostura’s records showed only one payment was made to the Government as a repayment for the debt owed in the bailout arrangements. This, Rowley said, he was advised by Finance Minister Colm Imbert was $500 million. But this was all they had on Angostura’s activity.

“There was great difficulty in getting information (about CLF’s financial position) for months. There are no audited financial statements of these companies. So we couldn’t go to the financial statements and find out.”

When the Government eventually got the information, Rowley said what they received was very alarming.

“The gist of it is that Angostura, a company that was making hundred of millions of dollars in profit…the Government was asking where those profits going because we had an interest in repaying the taxpayer money. We found out in recent weeks that the Angostura profit was going to a company in Scotland called CL World Brands, purportedly owned 100 per cent by shareholders who were bailed out by the Government.”

Having examined the facts, Rowley said they realised the shareholders did not in fact own 100 per cent of the company.

“In fact, 60 per cent of it was owned by other entities. Yet the profits were going abroad and creating a pool of funds for persons outside.”

The PM said the Government was so alarmed with this development that they took steps to take action against persons.

“One particular person was responsible for facilitating this. And we set about to ensure that there is rectification so the Angostura profits, which I think 60 per cent, belong to CIB and Clico.”

The remaining 40 per cent, Rowley said was due to the Scottish company.

He said they also gained money from the sale of a methanol plant, which went to court after its minority shareholder Proman sued over its sale because it was being done outside of the arrangements of the company’s by-laws.

“And the minority shareholder took the Government to arbitration over the Government’s intention to sell that plant without giving the minority shareholder its rights of first refusal. The Government fought that matter and lost it and the arbitrator instructed that one of the methanol plants be sold. That sale took place and the proceeds came to the Government…about $7.5 billion.”

The PM said that was the only money the state had collected.

“So it is wrong to say that the Government has been raiding these companies and using them for budget support.”

So far, Rowley said of a debt of approximately $23 billion debt, only $7.5 billion was repaid.

“So there was $15 billion unattended for years.”

Following Government’s prying, however, Rowley said the shareholders took the position that the Government must get off the board and subsequently refused to negotiate and sign a new shareholders’ agreement.

Government has purchased the controversial Buccoo Estate in Tobago, popularly known as No Man’s Land, for $174, 806,775 million.

The 398.42 acre property, which is listed as one of the CL Financial’s (CLF) assets, was sold earlier this year. Each acre was valued at US$65,000, bringing the total value of the secluded property to US$25,897,300.

In 2016, Clico carried on its balance sheet the value of the land at roughly $187 million. The transfer agreement was completed on March 2017.

However, at a press conference last week, Carlton Reis, who represents CL Financial shareholders under the group United Shareholders Ltd, had estimated the land at $500 million.

Clico Policyholders Group chairman Peter Permell, in a July 16 Sunday Guardian article, said a Project Rebirth report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoppers estimated the fair market value of the property at approximately $867 million.

The land will be offered to Sandals chairman Gordon “Butch” Stewart for the construction of two hotel resorts comprising 750 rooms.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley confirmed Government purchased the property at market value. He said an issue was raised recently about Government’s taking possession of the CLF assets, noting it was argued that what was on the books was not the real value and Government should have sought a valuation.

“But it was said that the lands we took in Tobago in lieu of the debt and set off against the debt might have been improperly done and the value might not have been established properly. Let me today put that to rest,” he said.

“The Government, quite properly, through the relevant authority in all of this, the board set off the monies owed for the value of those land. And the value was established by reputable independent valuators in Trinidad and Tobago. And that is the value at which the Government’s debt was reduced by virtue of the value of this land.”

The PM warned all those who have been saying the Government took possession of the land and paid “half X for it... nothing is further from the truth. The law requires that any disposal of assets under the Central Bank, as it is now holding assets for Clico…any disposal requires fair market value. And that is exactly what we got in that.

He said the valuation was based on an analysis of 100 per cent of the common stock of Occidental Investments Ltd and Oceanic Properties Ltd, owned by Clico.

Rowley said a lot of misinformation was being put out in the public domain by people who were unaware “but who are fuelling conspiracies and ascribing misconduct to the Government” was misleading.

“Those lands would have been acquired by the Government at full market value established by reputable valuators.”

Rowley left a copy of the valuation for the media’s perusal, but did not field questions about the land.

CL Financial (CLF) shareholders claim to be unaware Angostura profits were being transferred to CL World Brands in Scotland. In fact, according to them, those profits were supposed to be going back to repay their debt to government.

They also say all the information regarding the transfer of Buccoo Estate in Tobago and Home Construction Limited’s (HCL) shares have not been put into the public domain.

This was the response of shareholders Kirk Carpenter and Carlton Reis at a press conference at Jenny’s on the Boulevard, Port-of-Spain, yesterday, hours after Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told the public why the Government took CLF to court to recover the $15 billion debt it is owed.

“We noted that reference was made to the Angostura Group and payments being made to CL World Brands (CLWB). But as far as the shareholders are aware, the money that was being paid out of CLWB were used to pay off secured debts, including payments to CIB, which is part of the government debt,” Carpenter said.

“Other payments coming from the CLWB included the group’s tax liability owed to the Government.”

Carpenter made it clear that CLWB has properly audited accounts as required by UK Law.

With respect to the transfer of the Buccoo Estate and transfer of HCL shares, Carpenter said those assets were transferred to Government without the shareholders being informed, adding to date no valuation of those assets has been presented to them.

“It is that back drop that led the requisition to appoint two further directors to the CLF board with the sole purpose of expediting payment to the Government,” Carpenter said.

Addressing Rowley’s claim that CLF was not prepared to issue a debenture, Carpenter said they were prepared to do so since under the previous government and had almost reached an agreement.

“The previous government had a structure where it would negotiate with respect to the repayment of the debt, while their directors would run the company together with the shareholders’ directors,” Carpenter said.

However, he said when the current government came into power, “there was never any approach to have such a debenture executed.”

Additionally, Carpenter said decisions have been made by the CLF board without input from the shareholder directors.

As far as the company’s ability to repay their debt is concerned, he said: “CLF’s accounts, as far as I am aware, are unaudited management accounts and do not show the conglomerate’s true value. In fact, Clico and CIB have been left out of the management accounts of CLF, but this is where most of the group’s money lies to repay the government.

“We should remember that Clico’s debt to the government is as a policyholder, therefore their money is inside the statutory fund of Colonial Life Insurance Company, where CLF has no access. It is therefore impossible for CLF to instruct Clico to pay the government as a policyholder.

“Additionally, the book value of certain assets such as HCL is not properly valued since the majority of valuations are over a decade old. The total asset base of the CLF Group must be looked at in any repayment of the debt.”

The shareholders said this was not the first time misinformation has been placed in the public domain, but added they had the utmost confidence Rowley was properly advised.

He said during the 16th extension of their agreement with the government from June to August 2016, the shareholders made numerous requests to clarify the amount of the debt but got no information.

“We had meetings with the Minister of Finance in August 2016 where we were informed that the group was requested to repay $10 billion by June 2017. The chairman of CLF, in September 2016, asked me to prepare a presentation as to how the group would repay the $10 billion debt. It was eventually agreed for Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) to present a proposal to repay the government,” Carpenter said.

He said after meetings with PWC, the shareholders and the shareholder directors, PWC came up with Project Rebirth.

“PWC gave three options available: a group consolidated disbursement to repay the debt; raising external financing and liquidation which was called “the nuclear option. PWC’s proposal favoured the first option,” Carpenter said.

In early January 2017, Project Rebirth was delivered to the Minister of Finance on the instruction of CLF’s chairman. But since that submission, the shareholders said they received no feedback from the Ministry of Finance “until sometime in late June.”

Head of the Clico Policyholders’ Group, Peter Permell, last night told the T&T Guardian they endorsed Carpenter’s statement, but declined to make any comment on Rowley’s statement until after they had studied it.

Permell said a number of things Rowley said may impact on his group, whilst some may not.

“But at the end of the day, our interests, in a sense, are intertwined in that of the shareholders from the perspective that if you start winding up CLF it is going to eventually trickle down to Clico. Therefore, we are concerned about anything that is going to affect the fortunes of Clico,” Permell said.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday took umbrage to his Government being accused of betraying black people, as the State moves to recover a $15 billion debt owed by CLF through the courts.

Rowley raised the issue while speaking to the media at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, noting the issue had been a major topic of discussion in the public domain recently.

“You see the discussion that took place here last week (referring to the court action) about this black man company and this black company and this black government betraying black people, I take serious umbrage to that.”

In explaining why he took offense to the accusation, Rowley said it was the late Dr Eric Williams who wrote that the blackest thing in slavery was not the black man.

“And for all of you who have talked about black man...and black man this and black man that, I might be the blackest man in Trinidad and Tobago. So black that when I was made leader of the PNM, some of the very voices who are now talking about black man company and being betrayed by black man, the argument then was that I couldn’t lead the party and I couldn’t lead the country because I was too black.”

Rowley said the issue now before the court and country was not about race and that folly must be exposed and dismissed for what it was.

“Because that is the kind of foolishness that gets the taxpayer to join like a turkey voting for thanksgiving.”

He said when taxpayers are supposed to be supporting the Government to protect their money, people were instead encouraging them to have their monies exposed without interest and protection and to have their only representative, the Government, kicked off the CLF board.

Rowley said he hoped citizens would understand the message he relayed.

Stories by The Police Service Social and Welfare Association say they will support and defend any officer who refuses to use the body worn cameras in the absence of documentation from the acting Police Commissioner on the guidelines for using the new equipment.

In a telephone interview yesterday, general secretary of the association, Insp Anand Ramesar, said while the association supports the philosophy of the body worn cameras, they will not be supporting any “unilateral decisions” made by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams. Ramesar said there is currently no policy to guide the use of the new equipment and how the officers be judged while using it.

Ramesar said: “What the (acting) Commissioner of Police needs to do is have a documented policy on use of the body worn cameras so that police officers will have a better understanding on how their conduct is going to be interpreted and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the body worn cameras.”

Last week, Williams launched a national project to outfit 60 police officers across the nine divisions with body cameras as a six-month pilot project. The aim is to gather information before possibly equipping every officer with the cameras. Williams said, then, that the project came following several calls by the association for the use of body worn cameras.

“I cannot see any platform for any police officer who do not wear it to be disciplined. What I hope though is that given it is a pilot project that the Commissioner will ensure that it is a very smooth environment which can only be achieved through consultation. The association will interrogate the framework in which the officer is made to wear it and if there is none that compels him, we will stand to protect our officer” Ramesar said.

Yesterday, when asked if police are now retracting their position for fear that their alleged misdeeds of bribery and brutality will be recorded, Ramesar said: “Such utterances are ill-intended and very non-nonsensical in terms of understanding where police officers want to go. These criticisms are not applicable to the Police Service at this time.”

He added that the cameras may hinder police response to situations as the officers will be concerned about how their actions may be judged later by their peers, the public and the Police Complaints Authority. He added that now police officers will have to be “dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s”. He admitted that the public will be the sole beneficiary of the project.

“I am not too happy with my officers being guinea pigs without some sort of consultation on the issue or some guarantee that a pilot project is just that, a pilot project and it is all about data collecting at this stage and we will see how the data is collected at this period. We need to have a framework. What about data sharing? What about the public who do not want to be filmed? These things need to be answered and there is no response on these issues” Ramesar said.

He added that the if there is no consultation between now and next Tuesday when the six-month trial is scheduled to begin, then he will meet with his membership and get guidance from them. He added that the consultation will take into consideration the “culture of policing in Trinidad and Tobago”.

A seven-year-old boy who told his family he was going to use the bathroom, drowned at a community pool in a gated community in Trincity on Wednesday.

The child, Roberto Heeraman, according to police reports, was not heard from for some minutes and when his relatives went to check, they found the child to the bottom of the pool with his hand stuck in the water filtering system. Heeraman had just left the pool where he and his 15-year-old brother were bathing, police said.

Police said Heeraman was pronounced dead on arrival at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex after spending close to five minutes beneath the water at East Gate of the Greens apartment complex.

The pool is surrounded by five apartment complexes and is only available to tenants between 5 am to 8 pm daily. The incident took place around 2 pm on Wednesday.

When the T&T Guardian visited yesterday around the same time, the pool area was empty with three employees closeby and security making checks.

Heeraman is the second child to drown since school closed for the July-August vacation. Messi Gorkin, 3, drowned after he went missing while with family at the Board walk in Chaguaramas.

The child was last seen alive around 5pm on July 16, his body was found floating around 6 am the following day near Pier One Chaguaramas.

The Judicial and Legal Service Commission has apologised for its failure to submit its annual reports to Parliament between 2008 and 2015, as required under the Constitution.

In a press release issued in response to a report in the Trinidad Express newspaper over the issue, the Director of Personnel Administration said that the commission acknowledged the error.

“The omission was in fact brought to its attention by the Service Commissions Department, which provides the secretariat to assist all Service Commissions in preparation of reports, while the Department was preparing the 2016 Annual Report, in keeping with the provisions of Section 66C(2) of the Constitution,” the release said.

It claimed that the department was in the process of bringing the reports up-to-date and that it would be complete by October 1.

“The JLSC apologises to the Office of the President for the omission and wishes to assure that no disrespect was intended to His Excellency or to the Office of the President,” the release added.

The requirement was introduced by Parliament in 2000 when the Constitution was amended to introduce Joint Select Committees of Parliament. Under the amendment, the JLSC is the only service commission exempt from scrutiny from a JSC but is required to submit its annual reports to the President.

After, the reports are then to be tabled in both houses of Parliament.

According to the newspaper report, the last report to be submitted and tabled was the one for 2007.

The failure to submit occurred exclusively under the tenure of embattled Chief Justice Ivor Archie, who is the chairman of the commission.

The JLSC has been under public scrutiny since the debacle caused by the short-lived appointment of former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar.

Ayers-Caesar resigned within two weeks of being appointed a High Court Judge, amid criticism over the 52 cases she left unfinished when she took up the post.

Ayers-Caesar had claimed that she had informed Archie that she had 28 matters pending, however, a later audit revealed that the actual figure was double what was anticipated.

Ayers-Caesar has since sued the JLSC as she claimed that she was pressured to resign.

With uncertainty over how to address the unfinished cases, the JLSC held a stakeholders meeting in which it was decided that the case should be restarted.

However, weeks later the JLSC admitted that the proposed move was not a final decision on the issue but merely a suggestion.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is still considering how to proceed with the cases.

On June 1, the Law Association passed a historic no confidence motion in Archie and the JLSC over their handling of Ayers-Caesar’s case and called on them to resign.

The United National Congress (UNC) also filed a lawsuit challenging the composition of the JLSC and its ability to make decisions without its full complement of members. The lawsuit was dismissed by the Court of Appeal but is currently before the Privy Council.

Later that month JLSC members Humphrey Stollmeyer and Roger Hamel-Smith resigned citing personal reasons including trauma to their families from undue criticism over their work.

President Anthony Carmona is still in the process of filling the vacancies.

Besides Archie, the current members of the JLSC are head of the Public Service Commission (PSC) Maureen Manchouck and attorney Ernest Koylass, SC.

High Court judge David Harris will rule on September 28 whether former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar can take legal action against the Judicial Legal Services Commission (JLSC) and President Anthony Carmona over her resignation in April.

Ayers-Caesar is seeking a judicial review against the JLSC chaired by Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Carmona, challenging what she said was her forced resignation as a judge, deeming it to be illegal. The matter came up for hearing in the San Fernando High Court before Harris yesterday.

Ayers-Caesar was represented by Senior Counsel, Ramesh Lawrence-Maharaj and his legal team. The application, inclusive of a witness statement belonging to Ayers-Caesar, was filed last week.

Ayers-Caesar is also suing the JLSC and the Office of the Attorney General.

Attorneys Russell Martineau SC, Deborah Peake SC, Ian Benjamin and Ian Roach represented the JLSC while Reginald Armour SC, Ravi Hesses-Doon and Ravi Nanga appeared the Office of the Attorney General.

Ayers-Caesar, took the oath before President Carmona on April 12. She later tendered her resignation on April 27 and on that same day, Archie issued a statement accusing her of not making himself or the JLSC aware of the “full extent of her obligation in the Magistrates’ Court before she was sworn in.” 

In reference to some 53 part-heard matters that Ayers-Caesar had pending at the Magistrates’ Court, Archie accused her of failing “to manage the transition from the magistracy to the High Court in a way which ensured that undue hardship was not placed on stake holders.”

Yesterday, Maharaj presented the application for leave to file for judicial review on Ayers-Caesar’s behalf, telling the court that she had been forced to sign a resignation letter that had been written for her by the CJ’s secretary on April 27, 2017.

He said an appointment had been made for her to meet Carmona by the JLSC. He said both of these things, among others, constituted a breach of the Section 137 of the Constitution which states a judge can only be removed from office for misbehaviour and an inability to perform the function of office.

He submitted that the actions of the JLSC and Carmona were unlawful and unfair to Ayers-Caesar and amounted a constructive dismissal and constructive removal from her position as a judge. He further submitted the actions of both parties threatened the judicial independence and security of tenure of judges.

Harris ordered that the JLSC and the AG’s office file their responses to the application on or before September 8, 2017. Maharaj was given 14 days after that to file any response to the two parties.

The matter was then set for hearing on September 28, 2017 at the Port-of-Spain High Court. 

Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams has mandated his charges to increase the rate of prosecution of firearm offenders, in order to reduce T&T’s high level of violent crimes.

Delivering the feature address at the Southern Division Awards Function and Dinner for 2016 on Wednesday at the JR&D Convention Centre, Williams said that whereas the focus in 2016 was illegal firearms recovery, sending the offenders to prison was their new goal.

“For us as an organisation, it is not only about seizing firearms and setting new records...One of the records that are necessary to set in 2017, which we did not focus on in 2016, is the prosecution to conviction of the firearm offenders. If we can focus on the firearm offenders and successfully prosecute them, I believe that the country will see that obvious correlation between the number of firearm offenders put away and link it to a drop in violence in Trinidad and Tobago.

“In that context, we have mandated all divisional commanders to identify those firearm offenders in their respective division and focus on preparing the cases so that the court could be in a position to benefit from our readiness to lead evidence and finally convict those individuals of the offences that they would have committed. If we do that in a record breaking away in 2017, it is almost guaranteed that the drop in violence that we seek, we will achieve,” Williams said.

In 2016, the Southern Division recovered 170 firearms, an all time record among all divisions. For this year, 96 firearms have been recovered in the Southern Division. There was a slight increase in murders in 2016 from 2015. Supt Yussuff Gafar said there was a 1 per cent reduction in serious crime in 2016. Out of the 1752 serious crimes recorded last year, 526 were solved.

The Industrial Court has ordered that international courier firm DHL pay $2.3 million in compensation for the wrongful dismissal of its former district manger for the English-speaking Caribbean.

Delivering an oral judgment yesterday, Industrial Court judge Melvin Daniel ruled that the company acted unlawfully when it made the manager redundant less than two months after she was given the position in August 2012.

Lawyers representing the worker’s union, the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), requested that the worker’s identity be withheld as she feared she might become a victim of crime due to her windfall from the case.

According to the evidence in the case, the company claimed the worker was made redundant in March 2013 due to a restructuring exercise throughout the international organisation.

However, the CWU, claimed that she was fired as she was forced to take a month sick leave in December 2012 after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The disorder arose out of an incident in 2007, in which the woman’s husband was murdered during a botched robbery whilst they and their children were on vacation in Venezuela.

The union claimed that the redundancy was a sham to disguise the real reason for her dismissal.

“The worker suffered from PTSD, and as a consequence, the employer elected to contrive this redundancy in order to rid themselves of an employee who was ill, had been on extended sick leave, and as a consequence, the risk was that she would not be capable of operating at premium levels,” the union’s lawyer Michael Quamina said in his submission in the case.

The union also took issue with the fact that the company attempted to produce a computer generated report from October 2012, which it claimed showed that the worker was being considered for redundancy.

“It is wholly inconsistent with redundancy for it to be the case that a worker who is made redundant is promoted into a position a mere two months prior to the commencement of the exercise,” Quamina said.

He also pointed to the fact that after the worker returned from a month sick leave in December 2012, she was offered voluntary separation from the company due to illness. While she was challenging the move, she was made redundant.

“It was only when the company came to the view that the workers’ illness may affect her performance was separation explored, and when the negotiations for separation promised to be tough, they instead surreptitiously created the redundancy with respect to the worker and separated her on the minimum formula provided under the Retrenchment and Severance Act in order to avoid costs associated with a negotiated separation,” Quamina said.

In his judgment Daniel agreed with the union’s explanation for the incident as he described the dismissal as egregious.

While the union was claiming that the worker was entitled to three years of her last monthly salary ($123,000 inclusive of a car and housing allowance), Daniel reduced the figure.

The decision to make your diet one that is low in sugar, low in toxins and that’s filled with high-fibre foods is one of the best decisions you can make because following such a diet is crucial for supporting your liver.

Increasing the amounts of antioxidants and fibre in your diet can even cause liver damage and disease to be reversed. The liver is the main organ that is involved in the process of detoxification since it is responsible for removing toxins created both inside and outside of your body.

When the liver can’t remove harmful substances, the immune system takes the rising level of toxins as a threat, which causes inflammation. An influx of sugar from foods like refined grains, sugary snacks and sweetened drinks puts a lot on pressure on your liver to convert and store glucose and should be avoided as much as possible.

Chelsea Bedase

El Dorado

Christopher Julien, the man who exposed himself to students at a primary school in San Fernando on two occasions, was sentenced to a total of 20 months with hard labour when he appeared in court yesterday.

Julien, 39, was arrested in May for indecently exposing himself in front of a boy’s primary school, after police officers saw him standing with his jersey raised and his pants and underwear at his knees. He was holding his private part in his hand. When he was arrested, Julien reportedly told the officers, “I like them lil children.”

The officer held onto his hand to arrest him, but Julien began pulling away in a violent manner, eventually freed himself and began to run away from the officers. He was caught a short distance away. He was also charged with resisting arrest and escaping lawful custody.

Julien had also been charged in March for exposing himself while standing opposite the Anstey Memorial Girls’ Anglican School and sentenced to 60 days in prison. Several months before that, he was sentenced to 40 days in jail for exposing himself to a woman. He also has prior convictions for possession of cocaine and marijuana.

When he appeared in court on May 22, Senior Magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine sent Julien for psychiatric evaluation at the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital. Yesterday when he went before the court, Antoine said the report found that he was fit to plead.

Antoine said since Julien had already spent two months in custody awaiting the evaluation and the maximum penalty for indecent exposure was 60 days in jail, she would place him on a three-year bond on that charge. On the charge of resisting arrest, she sentenced him to 18 months hard labour and for escaping lawful custody he was sentenced to two months hard labour.

The sentences are to run concurrently so Julien will serve a total of 18 months behind bars.

Attorney Joseph Melville was yesterday sentenced to 19 years in prison for attempting to murder his former secretary Patricia Cox in 2001.

Melville, 62, from Sangre Grande, received the sentence from Justice Maria Wilson in the Port-of-Spain High Court, almost two months after he was convicted of the crime for the second time in 13 years.

He was given a 19-year sentence for attempting to murder Cox, 14 years for kidnapping her, nine years for conspiring to murder her and four years for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Melville will only serve the highest sentence, however, as the sentences were ordered to be served concurrently.

He is also expected to be released in less than 14 years, as the four years and nine months he spent in prison awaiting his appeal after his first conviction in 2004 was deducted from his sentence.

In passing the sentences on Melville, Wilson noted that there were no mitigating factors to his benefit except that he had a clean criminal record prior to the incident.

Wilson said the aggravating factors in the case which helped determine his sentence, included the fact that he was in a position of trust as Cox’s employer, that he was the mastermind of the crime and that he participated by instructing Cox to go with the men he had hired to kill her.

Melville sat silently in the prisoner enclosure of the court as the sentence was being read and waved to relatives and friends in the public gallery as he was being led away by police officers.

During his trial before Wilson, State prosecutors relied on Cox’s testimony, as well as that of Ainsley Alleyne, who along with Hilton Winchester and Jason Holder were hired by Melville to kidnap and kill Cox.

Alleyne was made a State witness in the case and testified against Melville in his preliminary inquiry. However, he died shortly after and his witness statement detailing the crime was read to the jury. Holder was initially charged with the crime but was freed of the charges during the inquiry. Winchester was convicted alongside Melville in 2004 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Winchester did not appeal his conviction.

Alleyne had claimed that on June 28, 2001, he was approached by Melville, through mutual friend Holder, and was offered $40,000 to kill Cox.

“He said she (Cox) was talking his business with the police and Fraud Squad was getting close,” Alleyne said.

Cox, in her testimony, had admitted that she had threatened to report Melville after she learned that he (Melville) had cashed in two insurance policies and failed to pay them to his client.

Alleyne testified that he, Holder and Winchester got instructions from Melville to drive to and wait by his office at Pembroke Street, Port-of-Spain, where Cox would meet them for what she believed would be a drive to collect legal documents at a client’s home. He said after Cox got into the car, Winchester drove to Cumberland Hill in St James.

Before reaching the location, Alleyne “locked” Cox’s neck while Holder stripped her of her clothes and jewellery. He admitted to attempting to sexually assault Cox in the car, but claimed to have stopped after she said she was on her period.

Alleyne said upon reaching the location, they took Cox out of the car and placed her to sit on a boulder next to a precipice, as they pondered how they would kill her as they had no knives or guns.

“He (Holder) picked up a stone and said it would be the fastest way to do it,” Alleyne said.

He said Cox was begging for her life and he informed her that it was Melville who had hired them to kill her. Cox then offered to pay them a larger sum to forgo killing her.

“I asked her if she wanted to hide out and pretend to be dead and we would split the money with her when we got paid,” he said.

Before they could respond to her proposal, she jumped off the precipice and ran into a forested area. Holder found her but was forced to let her go after a man who was hiking in the area saw the incident through his binoculars and raised an alarm. Cox said she hid for a while and then hiked through the forested area through the night until she reached a housing development the next morning.

Alleyne said hours later he and Holder went to Melville’s home at Sangre Grande, where he told Melville he had strangled Cox with his vest but could not say if she was dead as he and Holder were forced to quickly push her over the precipice because they had noticed a car approaching them.

Independence Day (August 31) in T&T has become synonymous with three major events: the military parade in the morning, the national awards in the evening and the fireworks display to top it all off.

However, starting from this year one of those events will no longer be a part of that list.

President Anthony Carmona yesterday announced that the national awards will now be held on Republic Day (September 24) instead of Independence Day.

It was “more appropriate” to have the awards ceremony on Republic Day instead of Independence Day, Carmona said.

Carmona said the national awards on Republic Day would be a great way for citizens to celebrate this country’s self-governance “meaningfully and with great honour.”

He previously wrote stakeholders to tell them that.

As President, Carmona is the “Chancellor of the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago” and therefore is “responsible for the administration of the Order, which includes the ceremonial presentation of the National Awards,” a release from the Office of the President stated yesterday.

In his letter to stakeholders, Carmona stated that when Trinidad and Tobago achieved Republican status 14 years after Independence, we no longer owed allegiance to the Queen”

“This paved the way for National Awards to be conferred in the name of the Head of State, the President, whose constitutional and ceremonial authority, legitimacy and remit are embedded and rooted in the Republican Constitution,” Carmona’s letter stated.

“In my Republic Day Address to the Nation on September 24, 2013, I stated...in the minds of many of us there exist some uncertainty and ambivalence about the significance of Republic Day...Perhaps the key difference between Independence Day and Republic Day is that Independence Day commemorates the road to freedom from colonial rule—which in our case was a relatively peaceful one —while Republic Day celebrates our achievements born out of our thirst for self-governance and the desire to determine our future. Independence Day celebrates the birth of our Nation but Republic Day celebrates our adulthood, our coming of age,” Carmona stated.

“I therefore would like to propose that as a Nation we celebrate our Republican status meaningfully and with great honour by hosting the annual National Awards on Republic Day rather than on Independence Day.

“This is not meant in any way to minimise or trivialise the historic significance and importance of Independence Day. No doubt, however, the National Awards Ceremony on Republic Day would raise the national consciousness of our people, deepen our sense of patriotism and pride in ourselves, give added credence to the Republican Constitution, and bring greater awareness of the true meaning and importance of Republic Day. I hope that these humble sentiments meet with your national expectations as to the Annual National Awards Ceremony being hosted on Republic Day,” Carmona stated.

While this country has saved close to $55 million in HIV/Aids antiretroviral drugs over the last year the total cost of HIV/Aids treatment in this country is still not known as it took into account several variables including personnel, equipment and the loss of productivity.

Making the comments was Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh who delivered the feature address at the launch of T&T System of Health Accounts Sensitisation Workshop held at the Works Ministry, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

He said due to the lack of data it meant that spending was not being accurately measured but added that initiatives would be put in place to address this.“What are we really spending as a society on HIV/Aids? But we know we spend about $40 billion a year on drugs,” Deyalsingh said.

He said the $55 million saved on HIV/Aids antiretroviral drugs was due to access from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) strategic fund. The minister said the drugs were no longer being brought in by local distributors but were purchased directly from the PAHO fund, resulting in “a lot of profit being cut out.”

“We reviewed the protocols also for oncology where we would provide a guaranteed supply of a basket of drugs and also for HIV/Aids. “Also we are relying more on the PAHO strategic fund to purchase these drugs and this would make the drugs more accessible and more affordable at all the sites that we want to make them available. We have saved $55 million without jeopardising the amount of drugs and we have also ordered more,” Deyalsingh said.

Asked about the availability of HIV/Aids drugs especially in rural areas the minister said such difficulties no longer existed as the protocols regarding drug classification has been reviewed.

He said HIV/Aids strategies were also expected to be strengthened with the reintroduction of the US’s (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) aimed at assisting small countries like T&T.

Deyalsingh said when the HIV/Aids Coordinating Unit was placed under the previous health ministry it “lost some momentum and focus” and access to PEPFAR funding was temporarily stopped.

“It took me about a year to save PEPFAR and I am hoping we would continue to benefit from PEPFAR in the new financial year. So it’s a total revamp of our HIV/Aids response,” Deyalsingh said.

He said close to 11,000 are living with HIV and of that figure 80 percent know their status.

“We need to get that figure up by 90 percent and then those 90 percent should be on drugs and 90 percent who are drugs should have their viral load suppressed enough to be HIV free.

“And that is how the world is going to move....to being HIV free by 2020,” Deyalsingh said.

Regarding the infection rate, he said there was an increase of this in men over 50 and in teenaged girls over 15.

Saying that education was key, Deyalsingh said there could be a “whole new generation coming up” which could be unaware of what the toll of HIV/Aids entailed.