Yvonne Ba­boolal

A re­lease from the White House in Wash­ing­ton and the US De­part­ment of State to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T recog­nis­ing the valu­able as­sis­tance of the Gov­ern­ment and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in ef­fect­ing the ex­tra­di­tion of Doreen Alexan­der has laid to rest spec­u­la­tion there is some kind of diplo­mat­ic rift be­tween the US and T&T, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day.

Ram­lo­gan was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the me­dia at the post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing that there was some dis­trust by US law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties in giv­ing in­for­ma­tion to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties in a FBI probe in­to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.Not­ing it was not high­light­ed in the me­dia, Ram­lo­gan said the Gov­ern­ment re­ceived the re­lease from White House of­fi­cials, which was fol­lowed up yes­ter­day morn­ing with an­oth­er from the US Em­bassy.

He read per­ti­nent parts of it. The re­lease said through co-op­er­a­tion be­tween the US and T&T, Doreen Alexan­der was ex­tra­dit­ed to the US from T&T on March 31 to face charges re­lat­ed to her al­leged role in the 2005 kid­nap­ping of nat­u­ralised US cit­i­zen, Bal­ram "Ba­lo" Ma­haraj."The US Em­bassy recog­nis­es the valu­able as­sis­tance of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T, ex­pe­cial­ly the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Anand Ram­lo­gan, in ef­fect­ing this ex­tra­di­tion."

The re­lease al­so recog­nised the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions of lo­cal law en­force­ment agen­cies in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the mat­ter.It said: "The Em­bassy al­so recog­nis­es the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad and Homi­cide Bu­reau for their role in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion."This lat­est ex­tra­di­tion un­der­scores the con­tin­u­ing diplo­mat­ic and law en­force­ment co-op­er­a­tion be­tween both coun­tries."

A vin­di­cat­ed Ram­lo­gan said: "So those who are try­ing to cre­ate mis­chief by sug­gest­ing there is some diplo­mat­ic rift be­tween T&T and the Unit­ed States, this re­lease is per­haps time­ly in putting that to rest and shelv­ing that whole is­sue."It was raised by the Op­po­si­tion as part of the or­di­nary po­lit­i­cal mis­chief that one ex­pects in the dy­namism of lo­cal pol­i­tics," he said dis­mis­sive­ly.

The Em­bassy re­lease said Alexan­der, 47, ar­rived in the US on Sun­day, March 31, and was ar­raigned be­fore US Mag­is­trate Judge Deb­o­rah A Robin­son in the Dis­trict of Colom­bia.It said she was charged in a two-count in­dict­ment filed in Sep­tem­ber 2010."Alexan­der is the last charged co-con­spir­a­tor in­volved in the al­leged kid­nap­ping of Ma­haraj, her for­mer boyfriend and fa­ther to one of her sons."

The re­lease re­called that Ma­haraj died as a re­sult of the kid­nap­ping."The oth­er 12 co-con­spir­a­tors were pre­vi­ous­ly ex­tra­dit­ed and pros­e­cut­ed by the US At­tor­ney's Of­fice for the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia."It said if con­vict­ed, Alexan­der faces a max­i­mum penal­ty of life im­pris­on­ment.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions that the US was up­set over the non-ex­tra­di­tion of UNC fi­nanciers Ish Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son on cor­rup­tion charges, the AG replied: "I don't know that is so, be­cause the re­lease speaks to the con­tin­u­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries."This is not the first time we ex­tra­dit­ed. Those gen­tle­men have a mat­ter be­fore the court. The Court of Ap­peal had ruled in their favour.

"The Gov­ern­ment and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, in fact, had ex­tra­dit­ed those two de­fen­dants. I signed that ex­tra­di­tion or­der. "It is the Court of Ap­peal that re­versed the judg­ment and grant­ed leave. That mat­ter is now be­fore the courts."Asked if he re­ceived any in­for­ma­tion on the US in­quiries in­to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, the AG said:"I have been in the Par­lia­ment for the last three days and was in Cab­i­net to­day, I don't know if any­thing reached my desk, but I doubt it.

"Our lo­cal em­bassy has been co-or­di­nat­ing and try­ing to give that as­sis­tance...We will have to wait and see," he said.Daryan Warn­er, Jack Warn­er's son, has been named a "co-op­er­at­ing wit­ness" in the FBI in­ves­ti­ga­tion.Among the mat­ters un­der scruti­ny are two pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Warn­er.