PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sept 11, CMC -Several persons detained who spent several weeks in prison on a Preventive Detention Order (PDO) issued during the state of emergency (SoE) that is due to expire later this month, are being released.
Among them is 69-year-old businesswoman, Star Sabga, whose attorney and former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi, confirmed that she has been released from detention.
“She cried. Some of those tears were relief. Some were disbelief. Others were simply an outpouring of emotion. She saw her family members come to her and walk into her living room past two wonderful police officers,” Al-Rawi said.
He said several legal challenges arising from the matter remain before the courts. Among them is a constitutional challenge to Section 6(2)(b) of the Interception of Communications Act, which identifies the authorities entitled to apply for the interception of communications.
“We hold the view that that section is unconstitutional because it lacks certain safeguards,” Al-Rawi said.
Sabga, 69, along with her niece, Genevieve and her businessman husband, Dominic Hadeed, were detained in connection with an alleged plot to murder government officials, including the Prime Minister. All three were placed under PDOs at the Golden Grove Prison in Arouca, along the ast west corridor, on June 27.
The Hadeeds were released on July 23 after Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander revoked their PDOs. Sabga remained under house arrest from July 27 until her release on Thursday this week.
Al-Rawi said it would be premature to conclude that the conspiracy allegations against his clients had been dismissed. He added that his clients are not contemplating further legal action against the State, as their ongoing matters already include claims for compensation.
On Thursday, Justice Carla Brown-Antoine gave the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) and the Office of the Attorney General until Monday to decide whether to withdraw an appeal over a judge’s decision to place Sabga on house arrest.
The judge granted the adjournment as the appeal came up for case management and hours after Alexander exercised his discretion to withdraw the PDO, effectively bringing Sabga’s detention at her Westmoorings apartment, west of here, to an end.
During the hearing, Justice Brown-Antoine questioned whether the appeal was now academic based on the PDO revocation and the expected end of the SoE next week.
The Hadeeds’ bid for interim release was initially blocked by Justice Frank Seepersad before being upheld by a panel of the Court of Appeal, which took issue with the justification put forward by Alexander for their detention on PDOs.
But another Court of Appeal panel led by Chief Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh stayed their colleagues’ findings pending the determination of a final appeal before the United Kingdom-based Privy Council, the country’s highest and final cpurt.
The PDOs against the Hadeeds were eventually revoked after the Privy Council indicated it could only hear the State’s appeal in October and in late July, High Court judge Vigel Paul agreed to place Sabga under house arrest conditions that were set by the initial Appeal Court panel for the Hadeeds. The TTPS and the AG’s Office appealed the ruling.
Meanwhile, relatives of the many people detained under PDOs have been gathering outside the Eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Centre (ECRC), the Youth Training Centre and the Women’s Prison, awaiting the release of their family members.
Meantime, the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) has warned that it will mount a direct legal challenge in court against any further attempts by the Government to extend or re-implement a SoE.
“We will challenge any attempt to extend the state of emergency by trick,” Al-Rawi told a news conference, creating a scenario in which the current SoE is allowed to lapse briefly before a new one is declared.
He said that any effort to suspend the SoE for “a day, a week, or 48 hours” before imposing another would trigger legal action.
“We’re just warning the Government that that will not be tolerated,” Al-Rawi said, making reference to last month’s ruling by the Court of Appeal ruling in Belize, which found that two states of emergency imposed on Southside Belize City in 2020 were unconstitutional.
In a landmark ruling the Court of Appeal also declared that the both the emergency proclamations and the mass detentions carried out under them unconstitutional with Acting Justice of Appeal E. Andrew Marshalleck said that using SoEs to tamp down gang violence, acts merely as “bandages rather than cures” while threatening the fundamental rights guaranteed by Section 3 of the Belize Constitution.
CMC/aj/ir/2026