PM on kidnapping of Tardieu couple: US ransom demand fishy

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the US$2.5 mil­lion ran­som re­quest by the kid­nap­pers of cou­ple Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu is “fishy”.

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 Derek Tardieu, said, “Dey have meh and want 2.5 mil­lion US for meh re­lease.”

Speak­ing with the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter ques­tioned why kid­nap­pers would want the ran­som in US dol­lars and such a large amount.

“The one at Monos Is­land ap­pears to be very—I don’t want to pro­nounce be­cause the mat­ter will be be­fore the po­lice and the courts, but it’s a bit fishy for some­one to ask for 2.5 mil­lion US dol­lars. So, I guess more in­ves­ti­ga­tions will give us more an­swers. If you are Akash (Sama­roo), or any cit­i­zen, I can’t see them de­mand­ing two mil­lion US dol­lars for you or any one of you here. So, we need to get drilled down in­to it; the po­lice need to do more in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in re­sponse to a ques­tion from Guardian Me­dia’s Akash Sama­roo be­fore at­tend­ing yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment.

In a me­dia re­lease, hours af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter spoke, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) ap­pealed to all me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers and mem­bers of the pub­lic to ex­er­cise re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­straint in re­port­ing, not­ing spec­u­la­tive or pre­ma­ture dis­clo­sures may place the lives and safe­ty of the vic­tim(s) at se­ri­ous risk.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said as far as he knew, there was no in­crease in kid­nap­pings for ran­som.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, dis­agreed with Alexan­der.

“We have ob­served a spike in the in­ci­dence of kid­nap­ping for ran­som in the coun­try, and we are hop­ing that the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of De­fence and the Gov­ern­ment as a whole, they have in place a plan to work with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to curb what ob­vi­ous­ly is a rise in kid­nap­ping and the in­ci­dence of kid­nap­pings in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but par­tic­u­lar­ly the in­ci­dent at Monos Is­land. It is very trou­bling,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS web­site, to date, there have been five re­ports of kid­nap­pings for ran­som, ex­clud­ing the cou­ple, and six for all of last year. A tal­ly by Guardian Me­dia re­vealed nine cas­es, in­clud­ing the cou­ple.

Yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said she, too, did not have the da­ta to prove that there was an in­crease in kid­nap­pings.

“I don’t have the da­ta in front me to say if there’s an up­surge or not, but every kid­nap­ping is cause for con­cern. This is why we have en­gaged our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, mean­ing the Unit­ed States, to as­sist us with what’s hap­pen­ing at our bor­ders,” she said.

Alexan­der said while the Gov­ern­ment didn’t ex­pect an up­surge, “We must be pre­pared for it.”

He said the prepa­ra­tion was on­go­ing, with a num­ber of meet­ings tak­ing place. He did not spec­i­fy who was part of the meet­ings.

While the Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment ar­gued over whether there was an in­crease in kid­nap­pings for ran­som or not, rel­a­tives of the cou­ples are call­ing for their safe re­lease, as they re­mained in the hands of their ab­duc­tors yes­ter­day.

Joe’s Piz­za post­ed on its Face­book page: “The Joe’s fam­i­ly, we’re all deeply stunned by the news of the kid­nap­ping of our dear friend and long­time cus­tomer, Der­rick Tardieu and his wife, Clari­bel. We are pray­ing for their safe and im­me­di­ate re­lease. We love you Stones, may God guide you home.”

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der yes­ter­day said the radar, in­stalled in To­ba­go by the US, could play a piv­otal role in solv­ing the Tardieus’ case.

Speak­ing with the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment, Alexan­der said there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the kid­nap­pers came by boat “pos­si­bly from an­oth­er place”, adding that he did not want to di­vulge too much.

Asked then if the radar would be used to ad­dress kid­nap­pers from the seas, Alexan­der said, “Def­i­nite­ly! That’s why we had very lit­tle to say at the time. Ru­mours were just spread­ing. What we con­tin­ue to see? Not the same thing hap­pen­ing every day? Boats com­ing in, we don’t know. And all of these things. This is what we are try­ing to strate­gi­cal­ly or­gan­ise. Tech­nol­o­gy at its best in or­der to pre­vent these things from hap­pen­ing.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing that is­sue, PNM MP Gon­za­les said the cou­ple’s kid­nap­ping pro­vides the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the radar in To­ba­go and how it will be put to use.

This was echoed by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

“I mean, it would be up to the Gov­ern­ment to tell us ex­act­ly what the radar would be used for, and that has not yet ma­te­ri­alised, save and ex­cept the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ing that the re­quest for the radar came from her. But we haven’t re­al­ly heard ex­act­ly what the radar will be used for.”

Alexan­der said if it were up to him, he would have “cir­cled my lit­tle coun­try with any type of tech­nol­o­gy that could bet­ter pro­tect my cit­i­zens.”

When asked if the US would re­ceive in­for­ma­tion from the radar, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­vised that the ques­tion be di­rect­ed to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

“I don’t have the in­for­ma­tion with me, that’s why I’m sug­gest­ing, be­cause he’s the one deal­ing with those mat­ters. And, of course, you have na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues some­times that are too sen­si­tive to put in the pub­lic do­main, so he will need to wait.

“Of course, our own mil­i­tary per­son­nel, some of them, would have ac­cess to that da­ta. I think the ques­tion is, you re­al­ly want to know who else. You’ll have to ask Min­is­ter Sturge, but I know for sure Trinidad and To­ba­go per­son­nel are in­volved in that ex­er­cise.”

When asked about this, Alexan­der said, “We are treat­ing with this sit­u­a­tion where we must ben­e­fit from what is hap­pen­ing, per­sons com­ing in­to our coun­try to cause any prob­lems. That’s all I can tell you.”

Pressed fur­ther, he added, “This will be shared with you all even­tu­al­ly. I don’t want to broad­cast any­thing. As I said be­fore, every­thing is a joint op­er­a­tion in and around Trinidad and To­ba­go. So that is what we are treat­ing with.”