CRIME Watch talk show host Ian Alleyne will remain in quarantine at the Caura Hospital for another day, as his legal challenge of his detention has been adjourned to Thursday.

Alleyne has asked the court to order his release from quarantine, claiming he is being held unlawfully.

At an emergency hearing on Wednesday, Justice Ricky Rahim adjourned the matter after giving directions for the filing of evidence from Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram; medical director for the Caura Hospital, Dr Michelle Trotman, the doctor who signed off on his discharge orders; and CARPHA. Rahim held that the matter was urgent.

Representing the State are Senior Counsel Reginald Armour and attorney Vanessa Gopaul.

On Tuesday, after his attorneys sent a’ pre-action protocol letter, they were told Alleyne had tested positive for covid19 on April 13 and did not meet the requirement for discharge from quarantine.

In the letter, senior attorney at the Office of the Attorney General, Tenille Ramkissoon, set out the history of the issue. Alleyne tested positive on March 24 and again on April 8. He was again tested on April 12 when he was negative and again on April 13 when he again tested positive.

On Tuesday, Alleyne said he was told on April 14 that his test he took the day before was negative. He said he and another patient on the ward, who also tested negative, were told that the test results were compromised and neither of them would be allowed to leave the hospital. The two men had already received their discharge papers.

Alleyne said all this happened after he went “live” on Facebook.

Alleyne said he protested he was being kept at the facility unlawfully and was told he would have be tested again. He said he refused, and also refused an injection he was told he had to have, because he was afraid of what could be done to him.

He said although the other patient was told his results were compromised and he could not leave, he was eventually discharged.

At about 1.30 am on Wednesday, Alleyne’s attorneys went before Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell, who ordered that the writ of habeas corpus proceedings should be served on the Chief Medical Officer and the solicitor general.

It was reassigned to Rahim, who is the emergency judge for the week.

In his application, Alleyne said he was deprived of his liberty without lawful justification by the CMO as the quarantine authority. He said the Quarantine Act regulations provide no lawful jurisdiction for his initial or continued detention.

Alleyne, who on Tuesday night said he was locked in on a ward and was being held against his will, also said he did not believe he had tested positive for coronavirus.

He said his further incarceration was unconstitutional, unlawful, oppressive, arbitrary and in breach of provisions of the Quarantine Act.

Alleyne said he was fearful for his life since he was told he would be given drugs. He insists he is not suffering from any illness and will suffer great hardship because of his detention, which he fears will continue indefinitely without the court’s intervention.

In the pre-action response, Ramkissoon said Alleyne’s own dissemination of dramatic videos to the public on March 24, when he was first told he had tested positive after being tested at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, ”can easily lead one to believe quite regrettably that the theater of public and political spectacle seems paramount to your client.”

She added, “Surely it cannot be lost upon the average observer that both your client and yourself have been active politicians for the Opposition UNC.”

Ramkissoon urged Ramdeen and Alleyne to “see the wisdom of focusing on the need to protect the public lives of each and everyone person in TT, including your client and his own family, as the world battles with the savagery caused by the ever-changing and evolving covid19 pandemic.”

“In these difficult and unprecedented times, energy is surely better channeled in measured and certain conversation and conduct rather than through lurching public attack premised upon unconstitutional theoretics advocated by opposition politicians,” she added.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh at Wednesday’s virtual media briefing called the way Alleyne handled the matter a “freak show” launched by people with “political aspirations who are hell-bent on destroying TT.”

CMO Dr Roshan Parasram said Caura’s medical director as well as the public health lab and CARPHA are to give him a report on what happened. He expects to get it in the next few days.