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.
They were never charged and were later released. It’s unclear whether those not facing charges would be released. 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 . Local attorney Criston J. There’s a camera above, so guess what, there’s nothing like attorney-client privilege.
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. 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. police said in 2025 that they had uncovered a plot to kill key government officials and attack public institutions While the number of reported killings fell to 369 last year. Earl Richards is one of 11 people charged in the May 2014 killing of prominent local attorney Dana Seetahal.
Credible threats against law enforcement that led to the emergency declaration were “substantially reduced,” the prime minister told Parliament on Wednesday. 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. “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. 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. 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.
