Gonzales slams PM’s ‘fishy’ kidnapping comment as insensitive

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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As the search for kid­napped cou­ple Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­plain what she meant by call­ing the US$2.5 mil­lion ran­som de­mand “fishy,” say­ing the com­ment was “in­sen­si­tive.”

Po­lice re­port­ed that Tardieu, 70, a busi­ness­man, and his 47-year-old wife were snatched from their Blanchette Bay, Monos Is­land home on Sat­ur­day night.

A fam­i­ly friend re­ceived a dis­tress­ing voice note from a cell­phone with a Colom­bian reg­is­tra­tion num­ber in­form­ing them of the kid­nap­ping around 9.44 pm.
The mes­sage, which came from Der­rick Tardieu, said, “Dey have meh and want 2.5 mil­lion US for meh re­lease.”

A video was lat­er re­leased show­ing the cou­ple with guns point­ed at their heads and some­one hold­ing a grenade close to them as Tardieu plead­ed with rel­a­tives in Span­ish to pay the ran­som.

On Tues­day, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned how come the ran­som de­mand was so high and made in US, la­belling it as “fishy.”

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les yes­ter­day called on the Prime Min­is­ter to say what she meant by this.

“When the Prime Min­is­ter, as chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, would tell the me­dia that she finds it to be very fishy, the ran­som de­mand, it sug­gests, to me, that the Prime Min­is­ter is not in charge and that she does not have at her dis­pos­al in­for­ma­tion that she can, that will al­low her to com­mu­ni­cate more ef­fec­tive­ly to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gon­za­les said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

A pub­lished re­port yes­ter­day quot­ed rel­a­tives of Tardieu as say­ing the com­ment was a pun made by the Prime Min­is­ter in re­la­tion to where the in­ci­dent hap­pened - Monos Is­land. The re­port added that rel­a­tives found that the me­dia was blow­ing the mat­ter out of pro­por­tion.

But Gon­za­les said the com­ment was in­sen­si­tive.

“I think the fam­i­ly, they are prob­a­bly so pained to hear the com­ments of the Prime Min­is­ter on this mat­ter. It’s not re­as­sur­ing. It’s not giv­ing them the as­sur­ance that the coun­try and the State, and the arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, are do­ing all with­in their pow­ers to get to the bot­tom of this.

“But to ar­rive at a con­clu­sion that the ran­som de­mand is fishy, I can just imag­ine the un­ease and the pain that this state­ment would have caused the fam­i­ly and the friends of the vic­tims.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, said the com­ment was not meant to of­fend. He added that any­one of­fend­ed may be tak­ing the words of the Prime Min­is­ter “a lit­tle too far.”

“I don’t think that the fam­i­ly or any­body should be of­fend­ed by the state­ment be­cause I think the Prime Min­is­ter re­al­ly meant, and I can’t think for her, but I can in­ter­pret what was said in the con­text in which it was said, and con­text is im­por­tant. And the con­text that I get is that it is very strange for a ran­som of 2.5 mil­lion US dol­lars.”

He added that the kid­nap­ping now ex­pos­es the is­land and any oth­er ter­ri­to­ries with­in the re­gion to crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Mean­while, head of the crim­i­nal di­vi­sion, ACP Richard Smith, said po­lice are util­is­ing all re­sources to res­cue the cou­ple. He said as far as he knew, the ran­som de­mand was not re­duced and re­mained un­paid up to yes­ter­day.
He al­so clar­i­fied that the video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia of 11 armed men, sup­pos­ed­ly po­lice of­fi­cers in a boat, was not record­ed yes­ter­day but was part of po­lice op­er­a­tions to se­cure Monos Is­land im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the cou­ple was snatched.