AG: I checked up on detainees

Attorney John Jeremie, SC. - Angelo Marcelle

ATTORNEY GENERAL John Jeremie, SC, has revealed he has visited the inmates who have been moved from the Arouca-based Maximum Security Prison to the Teteron and Staubles Bay defence force bases under detention, as he wrapped up debate on a motion to designate these Chaguaramas venues as prisons on July 29.

By a majority vote, the Senate passed a motion to approve the Prisons (No 2) Order, 2025. Some eight independent senators voted with the government to pass the bill with 23 votes "for", with one independent senator (Dr Desiree Murray) opting to abstain along with the six opposition senators, with no one voting "against". The House of Representative passed the motion on July 29.

While Jeremie related the danger the country was in before the declaration of the state of emergency (SoE), under which the detainees had been transferred, he also said his personal attention to the detainees' welfare was largely informed by knowledge of bad treatment meted out to some detained members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen during the 1990 attempted coup.

He said in 1990 some detainees were stripped and beaten and then subjected to mock executions, including the leader of the insurgents at the Red House.

The AG said, "We are committed as a government, committed to the rule of law, to attempting to strike that balance between the rights of an individual and the rights of the many in the society.

"It was that fact which drove me to pay a visit to the detainees in Teteron last week before Cabinet." Jeremie recalled talking with the detainees.

"I went in their cells and I spoke to them." He said he had not been taking requests for meals or any other service for the detainees, although he had noted the layout of their detention quarters.

"I am not a prison expert, but I thought it was my responsibility to see that they were alive, that they were being treated appropriately, given the nature of the threat we faced."

He noted many current complaints about all manner of things regarding those detentions.

"But these are persons who – to be frank – our intelligence services tell us were plotting...They were an existential threat to the State, days ago."

He said he had listened to them but with a jaundiced eye – ie a cynical disposition.

However the AG said he accepted senators' arguments that a fair balance must be struck between the rights of individual prisoners and the rights of society.

"We are attempting to balance. Sometimes the balance is equally struck. Sometimes you weigh one (more) in favour (than) the other.

"At this point in time I am sorry to say at this time the balance has to weighed in favour of the rights of the many."

Jeremie added, "And I say so notwithstanding that I wore no mask. Everyone else was doing that.

"I say to the Senate and I say to them that we are dealing with a crisis and their rights are secondary to ours."

The AG noted his important role as a guardian of the people's fundamental rights.

"There will come a time and that day may be soon, when I am very concerned about their constitutional and human rights. Not so today."

He thanked his ministry's chief parliamentary counsel for foresight to designate the current detention venues each to be a district prison.

Earlier, Jeremie detailed the backdrop of the imminent threat the detainees had posed on July 17-18 just before the SoE was declared. He said a policy-maker's job was to avoid such a threat., amid a balancing of the rights of an individual versus the State, all against the backdrop of 1990.

"It was in that context in the other place (House) that I spoke of the fact that we might not have been here today, given everything that is different today, given the capabilities of these groups.

"Believe you me, what you are looking at outside of the prison in terms of numbers is greater than what we faced in 1990."

He said in 1990 insurgents were able to leave a compound in Mucurapo under the nose of an army base right outside to carry out the attempted coup.

"If that could happen in 1990 with the manpower that they had, which is nothing compared to the manpower that these people have today..."