Among cases of locals returning from ISIS strongholds is one last November in which the former People's Partnership administration had to assist the David family – a mother, three step daughters and two pre-teen sons – to return from Turkey after the family was taken to join ISIS by her husband. The central Trinidad man was described as a Muslim militant.
Former National Security Minister Gary Griffith yesterday described that as a case of "human trafficking," saying the family had been "lured and didn't want to stay in Syria.T&T's Counter Trafficking officials escorted them back home, he said. The T&T Guardian learned that the group was interrogated by police on their return, having regard to the environment from which they had come from. Another returnee was a Rio Claro resident.
The T&T Guardian, however, could not get confirmation on how far any possible indoctrination might have reached with returnees known to the state.Former attorney general Garvin Nicholas said yesterday the past administration had instructed that anyone returning from the ISIS environment would have been monitored.
He said after former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar co-sponsored United Nations Security Council Resolution in September 2014, a lot of research was done on the legal issues concerning FTFs and a national counter-terrorism strategy was prepared. That was to have been reviewed by authorities and refined T&T's counter-terrorism capability.
Nicholas said: "We (PP) were moving to ensure that we knew of those T&T nationals going to ISIS, those returning and to track evidence of terrorist activity."He said current law allowed the state to freeze the assets of people suspected of being involved in terrorist activity, or funding this. Nicholas said there were a "number of matters" which the previous government was looking at in this regard, following receipt of information.
Two matters in question concerned alleged aiding and abetting terrorist dealings. Nicholas said the PP had been seeking clarity on if the people in those issues were involved in terrorist activities,"I had instructed the authorities to pursue the matter and we had gotten follow up information on this concerning persons who would have been convicted at the time," he said.