Analyst questions Govt’s use of SoEs after gangster’s PDO revoked

The re­vo­ca­tion of a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) against dance­hall artiste Joseph “Medz Boss” Oliviere has re­newed scruti­ny of the Gov­ern­ment’s use of ex­ec­u­tive de­ten­tion pow­ers and prompt­ed wider de­bate about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s an­ti-crime strat­e­gy.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for­mal­ly re­voked the de­ten­tion or­der against Oliviere, a res­i­dent of Third Street, Beetham Gar­dens, on Au­gust 24. The Gazette no­tice end­ed near­ly six months of ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ten­tion for the en­ter­tain­er, who had been held at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa since March 19 un­der para­graph nine of the Sched­ule to the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026.

The no­tice pro­vid­ed no rea­sons for the de­ci­sion, re­ly­ing in­stead on the statu­to­ry pro­vi­sion that the “Min­is­ter may re­voke a de­ten­tion or­der at any time.”