IN a case reminiscent of the Brent Thomas saga, Quantum Legal attorneys for Tarryl Swan, also known as Prince Swanny, are requesting information from Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood Christopher regarding Swan’s detention when he was refused entry into Dominica and returned to Trinidad in April this year and kept in police custody for a few days before being released.
The Express reported exclusively yesterday that Swan had fled the country and is seeking asylum in the United States. He is claiming that police officers from the Western Division Gang Unit (WDGU) have been threatening his life, harassing him, and attempting to implicate him in multiple homicides, shootings and woundings in the Carenage area over time.
Swan’s counsel wrote to the Commissioner’s attorney Keron Ramkhalawan yesterday seeking answers after Swan filed an application for judicial review by way of notice of application in the matter of CV- 2023-01067- Prince Swanny versus Commissioner of Police on April 8 of this year.
Swan’s lawyers, Blaine Sobrion and Criston Williams, said that Swan travelled to Dominica on April 7 to perform at an event on April 9 but “while on the tarmac at the airport, our client was not permitted to disembark and was subsequently told by Dominican immigration officials that they received information from Trinidad police that he should not be permitted in the country due to an ongoing investigation. Our client was not provided with a rejection notice or any form of documentation”.
Swan was sent back to Trinidad that night and held in police custody until April 11 by the Western Division Gang Unit (WDGU), who, the lawyers claim, would have passed on information about Swan to their Dominican counterparts.
Due process
The disclosure of the procedure(s) and paperwork of Swan’s extradition from Dominica under the Extradition (Commonwealth and Territories) Act was critical in this situation, Swan’s lawyers said.
The disclosure was required because Dominica was a Commonwealth territory, and the material is relevant to the question addressed and should be reviewed by the court, as it was in the case of Brent Thomas, they added.
They quoted from the judgment of Justice Devindra Rampersad in the Brent Thomas affair: “Therefore, the rule of law and due process would have been easily attainable by following the process thereunder. However, that was not the process followed at all…There was no other reason given as to why the Barbados Police Force would have detained him because there was no evidence of any illegality committed by the first defendant while in Barbados such as would have rendered him liable for arrest and detention.”
Gross misconduct
Swan’s lawyers contended that no procedure was followed, as mandated by the Extradition Act, and their client was not provided with a rejection notice, as ought to have been done in the circumstances and they were therefore requesting a copy of any such rejection notice.”
This information, they claim, was critical because Swan was involved in a case at the Port of Spain Magistrates’ Court with a police officer (name called) from the WDGU for violating a High Court order for disclosure. This charge allegedly served as the basis for the arrest and custody of Swan on April 7.
In light of this, the lawyers wrote to the DPP on August 2, requesting that his office assume leadership of the case or withdraw it in light of the claims contained in the letter.
The claims outlined in the letter “detailed the gross misconduct of police officers of the Western Division Gang Unit, entailing the use of underhanded tactics, manipulation and/or misuse of the law and court processes, legal opportunism and the failure to follow proper procedure in pursuit of the malicious prosecution of our client (Swan.)”
No evidence of money laundering
The letter to the DPP also cited concerns about the applications brought against Swan under the Interception of Communications Act (IOCA) and the Proceeds of Crime Act, and how the court dealt with them,
On March 31, 2023, officers of the WDGU, the National Operations Task Force (NOTF) with help from Police Canine Unit and coastal and air support went to a house at La Horquette Valley Road in Glencoe where Swan and 14 other persons were following a report of gang-related activities. During the search of a vehicle on the premises belonging to Swan the WDGU officers seized $21,000 in cash as well as $3,000 in cash from Swan.
A few days later Swan was arrested by officers and police went to the house with Swan in custody and displayed a search warrant addressed to “Taryll Swan.” Police seized several devices on the premises and Swan was released two days later.
Swan’s lawyers brought to the attention of the DPP the case involving the seizure of the money from Swan on March 31 in which it was alleged by the police in an affidavit that they had reasonable grounds to believe that Swan was participating in “gang-related activities” and there was reason to believe that the cash found was indirectly or directly represented the proceeds of the specified offences, namely, participation in an organised criminal group and racketeering and money laundering”.
On July 4 this year the cash detention hearing before Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle found there was no evidence of any “gang-related offences”.
The Chief Magistrate was quoted as saying, “There is no evidence to show money laundering, no evidence of any specified offence, no evidence of illegal gambling.”
The Chief Magistrate added, “There is no evidence to link the money in the vehicle to Mr Tarryl Swan. $20,000 is not over the limit. There is no evidence to combine the $20,000 in the vehicle and the $3,000 on Mr Swan. There is no evidence to show money laundering, no evidence of any specified offence, no evidence of illegal gambling…Application denied.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Sources: Aug 30, 2023. The Swanny saga