21 go free of gang charges

Port-of-Spain: The Government is to invoke a Detention Order not used in this country for decades, to rearrest 21 men who went free from the Magistrate's Court this morning, after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard told the court there was insufficient evidence to try them.

The men were arrested under the State of Emergency for allegedly being involved in gang activity. The DPP, however, told the court that he felt the Government was not proceeding correctly with the arrest of hundreds of people without proper evidence.

However senior officials have said that the Government would not utitlise the option of applying Detention Orders to all 21 men to detain them once more.

Then men are planning to initiate civil action against the state. They claim they were held under inhumane conditions in prison with five men to a cell with buckets as toilets and three showers to be used by as many as 60 men.

They say they have suffered untold personal hardship the character assassination these past three weeks they say has permanently tainted their reputation as many of them have returned home to no job and no real means to sustain their livelihoods.