Trinidad and Tobago ends long state of emergency as anger mounts over arrests

Trinidad and Tobago ends long state of emergency as anger mounts over arrests

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — Trinidad and Tobago ended a lengthy state of emergency on Thursday with authorities on alert for a possible surge in violence as activists and lawyers decried the mass arrests stemming from the measure.

Trinidad and Tobago ends long state of emergency as anger mounts over arrests

The state of emergency allowed the government to detain people who were deemed threats to security, including a well-known businessman and his wife who were accused of involvement in a plot to kill the prime minister. They were never charged and were later released.

The measure was initially approved in December 2024 and was extended several times, most recently in early March. More than 5,800 people were arrested after that extension, with 2,250 suspects yet to be charged, according to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. It's unclear whether those not facing charges would be released.

Credible threats against law enforcement that led to the emergency declaration were “substantially reduced,” the prime minister told Parliament on Wednesday.

Trinidad and Tobago has spent roughly 16 of the last 20 months under a state of emergency. In 2024, police reported a record 624 killings in the country of some 1.4 million people. While the number of reported killings fell to 369 last year, police said in 2025 that they had uncovered a plot to kill key government officials and attack public institutions.

The latest police statistics showed 255 reported killings so far this year, compared with 268 for the same period last year.

Local attorney Criston J. Williams said he expected some of those detained to sue the government as he called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to visit Trinidad and Tobago to investigate what he described as infringements upon people’s rights “under the guise of a state of emergency.”

Williams also denounced the treatment of his clients and the conditions at the military base where he met with them.

“They are transported to us blindfolded, shackled, hands behind their backs, a gray knapsack over their heads,” he said. He said their meetings typically took place in the presence of five armed men from law enforcement “who refer to themselves as operator one, two, three, four, five. There’s a camera above, so guess what, there’s nothing like attorney-client privilege.”

Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

“They have had several emergency orders, which doesn’t bode well with regards to the criminal activities that’s been occurring for a number of years, and that is something that needs to be addressed,” U.S. ambassador nominee Jennifer Johnson-Carroll said at her confirmation hearing in Washington D.C. in July.

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago's main opposition party has described the state of emergency as a failure.

“Having spent months oppressing the freedoms of our people and exercising extraordinary powers in the name of national security, we have yet to see any clear evidence that the has helped with the detection or fighting of crime,” opposition leader Pennelope Beckles said in a statement.

Tricia Richards said she hopes that the end of the state of emergency will mean getting to see her imprisoned husband, Earl Richards, again. She said she hasn’t seen or spoken to him since July 2025.

“Nothing, no visit, no call,” she said in a phone interview.

Earl Richards is one of 11 people charged in the May 2014 killing of prominent local attorney Dana Seetahal. He was already in detention, so according to his wife, he was then moved from a maximum-security facility to a makeshift prison the government set up on a military base in western Trinidad.

A father of five, Earl Richards appeared in a video that was shared on social media earlier this year. The video was apparently recorded during a virtual meeting with his attorneys, and it gave Tricia Richards a chance to see her husband’s face again.

“I’m really disappointed because in the space of three months, my husband deteriorated rapidly,” Tricia Richards said in phone interview.

Responding to whether the government might face legal challenges by those detained during the state of emergency but not charged, the prime minister said, “We still live in a democracy,” and that she was leaving it up to the courts.

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