Three Chinese men suspected of child prostitution in Trinidad and Tobago have been freed.

High Court Judge David Har­ris yes­ter­day up­held the men’s Habeas Corpus ap­pli­ca­tions af­ter po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors failed to give an of­fi­cial

ex­pla­nation for the delay in charging them.

They were ar­rest­ed al­most two weeks ago.

However their freedom yesterday was shortlived.

They were all im­me­di­ate­ly re­ar­rest­ed by Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cials for al­leged­ly over­stay­ing their time in Trinidad and Tobago.

Attorney for the police service, Ravi Rajcoomar told the court he was told police had dif­fi­cul­ties in re­tain­ing trans­la­tors for the nu­mer­ous Chinese sus­pects and South Amer­i­can vic­tims in the case, as they all spoke dif­fer­ent di­alects.

Mr. Ra­j­coomar al­leged that trans­la­tors, who had pre­vi­ous­ly worked with po­lice on oth­er cas­es, specif­i­cal­ly re­fused when asked to as­sist in the human traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said the is­sue was re­solved on Mon­day af­ter police re­tained a trans­la­tor used by the ju­di­cia­ry.

According to Mr. Rajcoomar in­ves­ti­ga­tors on­ly need­ed 24 hours to complete their work and to con­sult with the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Public Pros­e­cu­tions on pos­si­ble charges.

Justice Har­ris ques­tioned why po­lice of­fi­cers did not put the submissions in­to writ­ing as re­quired.

He al­so ques­tioned the fail­ure of the po­lice and oth­er agen­cies to have ad­e­quate trans­la­tors.

The men were among 18 Chi­nese na­tion­als who were de­tained on February 5^th as po­lice raid­ed pri­vate and com­mer­cial prop­er­ties in Curepe, Wood­brook and West­moor­ings.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, 19 fe­male mi­nors from Venezuela, sus­pect­ed of being forced in­to pros­ti­tution, were res­cued.

They re­main in pro­tec­tive cus­tody.