A 35-year-old Trini­bad artiste of San­ta Flo­ra was ar­rest­ed by po­lice dur­ing a spe­cial op­er­a­tion in Pe­nal yes­ter­day, for al­leged­ly threat­en­ing to “hunt and tie strap” peo­ple if they vot­ed for a par­tic­u­lar par­ty in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The man was held around 2.30 pm by of­fi­cers of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Unit un­der the su­per­vi­sion of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith, and As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Ramhar­rack, along with per­son­nel from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit and the South West­ern Di­vi­sion un­der the lead­er­ship of Snr Supt Kelvern Thomp­son.

A state­ment from the TTPS said the ar­rest was made af­ter the Trini­bad artiste post­ed a video to so­cial me­dia in which he ad­vised, “Yel­low is the code.”

In the record­ing which was one minute and 19 sec­onds long, the sus­pect who was clad in a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) jer­sey, was heard warn­ing, “I just in­vest in a hun­dred thou­sand tie strap. Me and my crew will be com­ing round and tie-strap alyuh mud­da ***.”

Hold­ing his hands aloft and joined at the wrists in a bound po­si­tion, the artiste went on, “Alyuh will re­al­ly be in a strong­hold the night be­fore (ex­ple­tive) elec­tion ... that alyuh cyar go out there and vote.”

Con­tact­ed on the mat­ter, the UNC’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, Dr Kirk Meighoo said, “The UNC is un­aware of the video.”

He said, “The par­ty does not en­gage in vi­o­lence and that type of be­hav­iour.”

Meighoo promised a state­ment would be is­sued by the par­ty

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed the ar­rest of the lo­cal Trini­bad artiste af­ter the vi­ral video sur­faced on­line.

Of­fi­cials said, “The TTPS takes any threats to pub­lic safe­ty or na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty se­ri­ous­ly, es­pe­cial­ly those that may in­cite vi­o­lence dur­ing the lead-up to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion sched­uled for Mon­day 28th April, 2025.

“Cit­i­zens are re­mind­ed that free­dom of ex­pres­sion must be ex­er­cised re­spon­si­bly and with­in the con­fines of the law.”

Ethics Coun­cil says

sev­er­al is­sues flagged

Mean­while, in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour said sev­er­al is­sues and con­cerns had been raised.

Sec­re­tary Leela Ramdeen re­vealed, “What did come to the Coun­cil was a re­port of the van­dal­is­ing of a bill­board of one can­di­date.”

She point­ed out that Clause 6, un­der the sec­tion ti­tled Pro­hib­it­ed Con­duct of the Code, speaks specif­i­cal­ly to this con­cern where­in the code pleads with all par­tic­i­pants to: “Not de­face, or in­duce any­one to un­law­ful­ly re­move or de­stroy, or de­face the bill­boards, plac­ards, posters or any oth­er elec­tion ma­te­ri­als of a par­ty or can­di­date.”

Ramdeen said, “With re­gard to this spe­cif­ic re­port, there was no ev­i­dence as to who may be re­spon­si­ble and to this end the coun­cil calls on all par­ties, can­di­dates and sup­port­ers to ad­here to this clause.”

But it added that “All pri­vate and pub­lic prop­er­ty rights are re­spect­ed.”

The coun­cil re­mind­ed those in­volved in erect­ing ban­ners and bill­boards or even the post­ing of fly­ers, to seek the per­mis­sion of prop­er­ty own­ers, be­fore so do­ing.

An­oth­er is­sue which was brought to the at­ten­tion of the Coun­cil was the al­le­ga­tion that AI (ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence) was be­ing used to gen­er­ate cam­paign ma­te­r­i­al.

The coun­cil not­ed that while it would be hard-pressed to de­ter­mine whether cam­paign ma­te­ri­als/state­ments were au­then­tic or AI-gen­er­at­ed, the fact re­mains that AI is a tool which may be used to make false or defam­a­to­ry claims.

Ramdeen said, “As we move to­wards the last two weeks of cam­paign­ing for the April 28th 2025 elec­tions, the coun­cil ac­knowl­edges that thus far the cam­paign has been good, re­spectable and peace­ful.

“We note small laps­es, and we ac­knowl­edge that these may be due to ig­no­rance of the code.”