TTPS: No laws breached by aircraft with explosives

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice says no laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go were breached in re­la­tion to the Ukrain­ian car­go air­craft that land­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Thurs­day night car­ry­ing sev­er­al tonnes of in­dus­tri­al ex­plo­sives.

In an up­date to­day, the TTPS said fur­ther en­quiries and con­sul­ta­tions with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions de­ter­mined that nei­ther the air­craft nor its op­er­a­tors com­mit­ted any of­fence un­der lo­cal laws.

The air­craft and its crew, who had been ques­tioned for sev­er­al hours by lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties, were sub­se­quent­ly cleared to leave Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter all lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ver­i­fi­ca­tions were com­plet­ed.

The TTPS said the air­craft has since re­sumed its sched­uled jour­ney.

De­spite the clear­ance, po­lice con­firmed that a sep­a­rate na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains ac­tive in­to the lo­cal chain of events that al­lowed the air­craft trans­port­ing volatile car­go to land in Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out the re­quired pri­or au­tho­ri­sa­tion.

The in­ci­dent prompt­ed a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro praised the agen­cies in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and said the mat­ter demon­strat­ed the val­ue of strong in­ter­a­gency co­op­er­a­tion.

“This in­ci­dent has again demon­strat­ed the pos­i­tive re­sults that can oc­cur when we have that ex­tra­or­di­nary lev­el of in­ter­a­gency co­op­er­a­tion which is re­quired in mat­ters in­volv­ing in­ter­na­tion­al tran­sit, sen­si­tive car­go, and cross-bor­der co­or­di­na­tion,” Gue­var­ro said.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volved Unit­ed States Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, the Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and sev­er­al TTPS units in­clud­ing Spe­cial Branch, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, the Mul­ti-Op­tion Po­lice Sec­tion and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

Gue­var­ro al­so as­sured the pub­lic that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies re­main ful­ly en­gaged and vig­i­lant in safe­guard­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and said fur­ther up­dates would be pro­vid­ed when op­er­a­tional­ly ap­pro­pri­ate.