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Fifteen years after he was taken into custody amid unproven claims of a conspiracy to assassinate Trinidad and Tobago’s then-prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and multiple senior cabinet members, David “Buffy” Milliard is opening up about the lasting harm of the 2011 ordeal that never led to a single criminal charge against him. Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express at the outlet’s Port of Spain headquarters on a recent day, Milliard detailed the irreversible damage to his personal reputation and professional livelihood—while still voicing unexpected understanding for the actions state security officials took at the time.

The 2011 incident unfolded at the peak of a nationwide state of emergency declared by Persad-Bissessar’s administration to curb rampant gang violence. In a shock address that grabbed national headlines, the prime minister announced a retaliatory assassination plot against her and three cabinet ministers, allegedly orchestrated by criminal networks targeted in the government’s anti-gang crackdown. Milliard was among 16 men—15 of whom were Muslim—picked up under a Preventive Detention Order, a sweeping security measure that allowed authorities to hold individuals without immediate charge. To this day, Milliard maintains his complete innocence, and no legal action was ever taken against him or any of the other 15 detainees in connection to the alleged plot.

Milliard recalled the moment of his arrest vividly: he was socializing at a barbecue stand on Port of Spain’s Independence Square shortly before midnight when dozens of police officers surrounded the area. “I looked up and said, ‘Chief, you have about 30 police officers here, so I guess I’ll come in quietly,’” he shared. Officers searched his van before moving him through three different police stations, and it was only at the final stop that a senior commander laid out the extraordinary accusation against him: “We have detained you because we believe you may be involved in an assassination plot to assassinate the prime minister and four sitting ministers.”

Milliard said he was left stunned by the claim. “I said, ‘Please say it again.’ He said it again. I said, ‘Say it one more time. I’m hoping on the third time it will disappear,’” he recalled. The following morning, he was interrogated by roughly 15 agents from multiple national intelligence and security agencies. He voluntarily surrendered his cellphones and other electronic devices for inspection, inviting investigators to produce any evidence tying him to the conspiracy. In the end, no such evidence—digital or otherwise—was ever presented to him.

Even without evidence to support the accusation, Milliard rejects the idea that security officials acted out of malice or a deliberate intent to frame the detainees. “The police are not crazy men,” he argued. “If somebody, anybody, said to them somebody is planning to kill the prime minister of our country and four ministers, would you not establish a net and start investigating? Of course, you would.” He pushed back against claims of a coordinated frame-up, noting that if authorities had wanted to falsely convict the group, they easily could have filed criminal charges that public opinion would have accepted. “If they wanted to set us up, we would have been charged,” he said. “Instead, none of the detainees were charged in connection with the alleged assassination plot.”

While Milliard escaped formal prosecution, the harm from his detention was immediate and lasting. “Perception is reality to he or she who perceives,” he explained. “Once you are detained for something like that, your business disappears.” Longtime clients cut ties, others demanded hours of explanation before agreeing to continue working with him, and even strangers approached him in public with baseless accusations. He recalled one encounter at a local supermarket where a customer directly asked why he wanted to kill Persad-Bissessar. After a 20-minute conversation clarifying his innocence, the man apologized—a moment that reinforced Milliard’s belief that honest dialogue can correct harmful public misperception.

Unlike many other detainees who were encouraged by legal counsel to pursue multi-million dollar compensation lawsuits against the state, Milliard has deliberately refused to take legal action for damages. He argues that any government compensation would ultimately draw from public tax revenue paid by ordinary working citizens. “The government has no money of their own. The government has money that is derived from taxation,” he explained. “Why would I take $15 million from the people who live around me because somebody heard something and took the necessary steps to prevent it? Who pays taxes? Ordinary citizens. My neighbours, whether they are 1%ers or they are 99%ers like me. Sufferers. You pay taxes. And when that money goes into the treasury, people perceive it to be Government funds, but it’s not. The lineage of that money is the pocket of a hardworking man.”

Milliard also praised the respectful and professional treatment he received from police and prison staff throughout his detention. He noted that correctional officers accommodated religious needs, providing halal meals for Muslim detainees and allowing regular prayer, and there was never any attempt to intimidate the held men. When detainees were released on December 5, 2011, shortly after midnight, then-prisons commissioner Martin Martinez personally arranged for each man to contact their families for a ride home, refusing to leave them stranded on the side of the highway late at night. “He said, ‘I cannot in good conscience let you go to stand on the highway at 12 o’clock at night.’ Who does that?” Milliard said.

Drawing a parallel to a recent high-profile detention case, Milliard expressed sympathy for businessman Dominic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve Hadeed, and their relative Star Sabga, who were recently taken into custody in an ongoing investigation. He urged the public to let law enforcement complete their work without rushing to judgment. “I feel sorry for Mr Hadeed. It’s a very hard experience for himself and his wife, but in actuality, if there’s any truth whatsoever, any reason for the national security apparatus to operate, they have no choice,” he said. When asked for advice for Hadeed, Milliard simply said, “May the truth come out.” Reflecting on his own case, he noted that while the current Trinidadian government is led by the same party that ordered his 2011 detention, “they could have sank me” — a comment that underscores the lasting vulnerability of his reputation after the uncharged detention.

In a sweeping 36-page legal affidavit submitted to Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court on July 3, 42-year-old Genevieve Hadeed has issued an unflinching denial of allegations that she conspired to assassinate Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, describing the claims as a devastating, unfathomable shock that has upended her entire family’s life.

The affidavit marks Hadeed’s first public personal account of the June 24 police raid on her family’s Westmoorings residence and the subsequent detention she faced under the country’s active state of emergency regulations. The legal filing is part of a constitutional motion brought by Hadeed and her husband, prominent local businessman Dominic Hadeed, who is also in detention.

Hadeed recounts that she first learned of the grave allegations against her when a police corporal served her a formal Preventive Detention Order (PDO). The document cited intelligence claiming she had publicly called for the deaths of the Prime Minister, sitting government ministers, and members of parliament, remarks allegedly made during parliamentary debates over an extension of the national state of emergency.

Reading the accusation for the first time, Hadeed writes, left her completely shattered. “Upon receiving the document, my heart sank. I envisaged my life was over. I became so weak and overwhelmed that I nearly collapsed to the floor. In that moment, it felt as though my entire world had come crushing down,” her affidavit reads. She says she was reeling from shock, fear, and disbelief, particularly at being lumped in the same category as Yasin Abu Bakr, the former leader of a failed 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad and Tobago. “I could not comprehend what I was reading… It was as if they were putting me in the same league as Abu Bakr, as if I were staging a coup,” she added.

Hadeed categorically rejects all claims against her, emphasizing that she has never plotted violence, engaged in criminal activity, or taken any step that threatens public safety. “I have never plotted to murder anyone, nor have I plotted to engage in any criminal activity, nor have I ever acted in any way which could be considered to be prejudicial to public safety by taking steps to carry out the type of allegations that are being levelled against me,” she stated.

She further describes the chaotic confusion of the early morning police raid on her home, where officers presented a search warrant tied to a conspiracy to murder investigation but provided no details of what she was alleged to have done, who she was supposed to have conspired with, or any other context. Hadeed, who has no prior criminal convictions or charges, called the entire situation deeply distressing and unfathomable.

The affidavit details harsh conditions during her detention at Trinidad’s Woodbrook Police Station: an 8-by-6 foot cell with a soiled floor, no furniture or bedding, an open floor-hole toilet, no running water, poor ventilation, dim lighting, and rampant cockroaches. She says she spent multiple sleepless nights in the cell, only being taken back to her home under armed police supervision during the day to shower, change clothes, and eat.

Hadeed also says she was stunned to learn that her 69-year-old maternal aunt, Star Sabga — a small businesswoman who makes a living selling homemade cheese — was also detained in connection with the case. She later learned from her legal team of a front-page *Express* newspaper report stating a PDO would be served against her, a revelation that left her even more confused, as no law enforcement official had notified her of the pending action. Hadeed noted that she had always understood PDOs were reserved for the most heinous and dangerous criminals, making her inclusion all the more bewildering.

A notable error recounted in the affidavit saw police transport Hadeed to another local residence on the day of her arrest to question a couple about a different Genevieve Hadeed — her sister-in-law who permanently resides in Spain. Even after the couple confirmed the other Genevieve Hadeed lived abroad, Hadeed remained in police custody.

Beyond her own ordeal, Hadeed centers much of her testimony on the harm done to her family. As the primary caregiver for her three children and her husband, who lives with multiple severe chronic health conditions including cancer, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, chronic lymphocytic lymphoma, and kidney disease, Hadeed argues that her detention and that of her husband has put his life at grave risk, as he has been cut off from regular medication, physiotherapy, and ongoing treatment. She also notes the profound emotional harm to her three children, who have suddenly been deprived of her daily care and guidance.

A lifelong community and charity worker, Hadeed has previously served as president of the Syrian Lebanese Women’s Association and been deeply involved in local philanthropic work, a track record she says is inconsistent with the accusations against her. She closes the affidavit by reaffirming her complete innocence, arguing that she is being punished before any criminal trial has taken place, and urging the High Court to grant her immediate release so she can return to her family.

A prominent Trinidad and Tobago business leader is fighting what he calls a pre-planned, politically driven detention, vehemently rejecting unproven accusations that he plotted to assassinate government officials. In a 30-page affidavit filed with the High Court on July 3, Dominic Hadeed, founder and managing director of Blue Waters Products Limited, has launched a constitutional challenge against the country’s Police Commissioner, Minister of Homeland Security, Attorney General, and police corporal Eldon Calliste, laying out his full account of the events that led to his June 24 arrest and detention without criminal charges.

Hadeed, who has never been convicted of or even charged with a criminal offense alongside his wife Genevieve, says the couple has been held in custody since late June without ever being interviewed or given a chance to respond to the allegations before preventive detention orders (PDOs) were issued. In clear, unreserved terms, he denied any involvement in conspiracy to harm members of the government or parliament.

“I have never plotted to assassinate anyone. I have never plotted to engage in any criminal activity whatsoever and I have never acted in any manner prejudicial to public safety by taking steps to carry out the type of allegations that are being levelled against me or otherwise,” Hadeed wrote in the affidavit. He added that he remains fully willing to cooperate with law enforcement investigators, despite authorities failing to confront him with the allegations even after days in custody before the PDO was formally issued.

A core part of Hadeed’s legal challenge targets the vague wording of the PDO itself. The document notes that the order fails to identify any supposed statements Hadeed is alleged to have made, the people he supposedly made them to, any co-conspirators linked to the claimed plot, or any overt actions taken to advance an assassination conspiracy. The allegations, he argues, are entirely unsupported by specific particulars.

Hadeed also pulls attention to controversial remarks made by Attorney General John Jeremie during a June 10 parliamentary debate over extending the country’s state of emergency. According to the affidavit, Jeremie deliberately revived a 2017 comment from a Anthony Bourdain interview, where another local businessman described the country’s small Syrian-Lebanese community as the most powerful ethnic group in the nation. Jeremie’s repeated references to the so-called “1%”, Bayshore residents, government land leases, and the Teteron prison effectively singled out Hadeed and other members of the Syrian-Lebanese community long before any detention orders were approved, Hadeed contends.

Those parliamentary remarks, he argues, amounted to a public preview of his arrest, proving that the decision to detain him was made before any serious investigation was completed. The “1%” label, Hadeed claims, has been deliberately used by government officials as a political weapon to stigmatize the minority ethnic group, and his current detention is the latest example of this targeted campaign.

Behind the assassination plot allegations, Hadeed says, lies a years-long public dispute with the Trinidad and Tobago state over agricultural and commercial land leases that forms the true backdrop for his arrest. He explains that Blue Waters Products acquired the leasehold interests of PR Trinidad in 2007, when those existing leases were set to expire in 2015. Immediately after the acquisition, the company entered talks with state authorities to secure new long-term leases. Relying on repeated official assurances that formal leases would be granted, Blue Waters invested millions of dollars into developing the properties, according to Hadeed.

Over the years, three successive national cabinets approved offers and amendments for multiple parcels of state land controlled by Blue Waters and its associated companies. Even though formal lease documents were never finalized, Hadeed maintains that binding legal agreements were already established through official offer letters, acceptance correspondence, and payments of premiums and processing fees to the Commissioner of State Lands.

The situation shifted dramatically earlier this year, after Hadeed publicly criticized government ministers over business tax policies and delays in VAT refunds at a March 25 leadership event hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association. Just weeks later, on May 5, Minister of Land and Legal Affairs Saddam Hosein notified Hadeed that the cabinet had voted to rescind all previous approvals to grant leases to Blue Waters Products Ltd, OG C1 Property Ltd and OG C2 Property Ltd. Hadeed adds that Attorney General Jeremie also referred all matters connected to the proposed leases to the Commissioner of Police for criminal investigation.

Hadeed retained top legal counsel, including former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC, who responded to the government by asserting that his companies had acted lawfully and in good faith, and that binding enforceable agreements were already in place. After multiple rounds of correspondence failed to resolve the dispute, Hadeed’s legal team issued a pre-action protocol letter on June 22, formally notifying the government of a planned constitutional claim over the breached lease agreements.

Just 48 hours later, police executed search warrants at Hadeed’s properties—a timeline that reinforces Hadeed’s belief that the entire police operation is directly tied to the land dispute, not any fabricated assassination plot. When officers arrived at his Bayshore residence before dawn on June 24 to seize electronic devices, Hadeed writes that he “immediately and honestly believed” the operation was connected to the state land lease controversy, given Jeremie’s earlier referral of the matter to police. “It never occurred to me, nor could it have, that the exercise had anything to do with any allegation of a plot to murder anyone,” he stated.

Hadeed again points to Jeremie’s June 10 parliamentary remarks, noting that references to people “living in Bayshore” and “stealing government land and property” were clearly directed at his companies’ ongoing lease dispute, and proved that his detention had been planned in advance. The Attorney General’s references to “state leases” and “extraordinary steps taken…to secure valuable State lands” were an unambiguous reference to the holdings controlled by Hadeed’s businesses, he adds. When the searches were conducted, Hadeed says he remained convinced the action was solely tied to the lease dispute, and only learned later that authorities were linking the operation to an unsubstantiated murder conspiracy claim.

In his account of the early morning raid, Hadeed says police searched his family home, seized electronic devices belonging to all members of the household—including his children’s devices—and later executed additional searches at Blue Waters’ corporate offices. He was not informed that he was under arrest until most searches were completed, and was never given a police caution or advised of his fundamental legal rights at the time of the operation, he claims.

The sequence of events—from the pre-detention parliamentary remarks, to the escalating land dispute, to the execution of search warrants, and finally the issuance of the PDO—proves that the decision to detain Hadeed was made long before any investigation was completed that could justify the extreme measure, the affidavit argues. Hadeed is now asking the High Court to rule that his core constitutional rights have been violated, and to grant appropriate constitutional relief as his legal challenge to the legality of his detention moves forward.