DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A se­nior mag­is­trate has ques­tioned why the po­lice chose to charge a man from Bel­mont, ac­cused of pos­ses­sion of high-pow­er am­mu­ni­tion, un­der reg­u­la­tions for the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency as op­posed to tra­di­tion­al leg­is­la­tion that car­ries a high­er penal­ty. 

Act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen made the en­quiry as Afi­ba Guer­ra, a 28-year-old land­scap­er from Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, Bel­mont, ap­peared be­fore him dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing, yes­ter­day morn­ing. At the start of the hear­ing, Dabideen ques­tioned why Guer­ra was charged un­der Sec­tion 8 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2024 and not un­der Sec­tion 6 of the Firearms Act. Dabideen point­ed out that the max­i­mum prison sen­tence for breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions is five years while the max­i­mum sen­tence un­der the leg­is­la­tion is eight years. 

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tors stat­ed that the po­lice com­plainant in the case act­ed on the ad­vice of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Le­gal Unit. “The le­gal ad­vis­ers said that where there is ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion which car­ries a high­er penal­ty, to use the reg­u­la­tions which car­ry a low­er penal­ty?” Dabideen fur­ther en­quired. “Yes, I was just fol­low­ing in­struc­tions,” the of­fi­cer re­spond­ed. 

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue, Guer­ra’s lawyer sug­gest­ed that the de­ci­sion was based on the reg­u­la­tions con­tain­ing a pro­vi­sion giv­ing mag­is­trates the pow­er to de­ny bail if they “rea­son­ably ap­pre­hend” that an ac­cused is like­ly to com­mit an­oth­er crim­i­nal of­fence or an­oth­er breach of the reg­u­la­tions if re­leased. 

The reg­u­la­tions al­so pre­vent a High Court Judge from re­view­ing a mag­is­trate’s de­ci­sion to de­ny bail un­der it (the reg­u­la­tions). Stat­ing that his client main­tains his in­no­cence in re­la­tion to the charge and a sep­a­rate but sim­i­lar pend­ing case from five years ago, he said: “This is a con­cert­ed at­tempt by the po­lice to utilise these reg­u­la­tions and a fab­ri­cat­ed case in or­der to pre­vent the ac­cused from ac­cess­ing bail.” 

Guer­ra’s lawyers in­di­cat­ed that he was in the process of draft­ing a ju­di­cial re­view case to chal­lenge the pro­ce­dure used to charge his client. Guer­ra, a fa­ther of two, was ar­rest­ed on Jan­u­ary 9 at Zachari­ah Av­enue, Thick Vil­lage, Siparia, af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found eight rounds of 7.62 cal­i­bre am­mu­ni­tion in a house he was at. The cas­ings for the am­mu­ni­tion all bore the mark­ing “VEN 75”. He plead­ed not guilty dur­ing the hear­ing. While Dabideen even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed to de­ny bail af­ter con­sid­er­ing the reg­u­la­tions and the Bail Act, he said he would re­con­sid­er the po­si­tion when Guer­ra reap­pears in court on Feb­ru­ary 10. 

Dabideen or­dered that the am­mu­ni­tion be tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James for bal­lis­tic test­ing.