PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, May 25, CMC – The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Monday awarded the Trinidad-based political analyst Derek Ramsamooj US$30,000 in damages resulting from his arrest and detention in Suriname in 2020.
Ramsamooj had alleged that his rights under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) which governs the regional integration movement, CARICOM, had been breached due to his unlawful detention by police officers in Suriname from October 2020 to September 2022.
He said he had also been denied legal counsel and medical attention and that he had also coerced into signing documents in Dutch, a language unknown to him, which were later used in court as his confession.
Justices Winston Anderson, the CCJ president, who read the summary of the ruling, said Ramsamooj was being awarded the US$30,000 “by way of non-pecuniary damages as compensation for the clear and significant injury sustained by the claimant as a result of the serious breach of an important RTC right”.
(more to follow)
CMC/2026