Gail Alexan­der

T&T has ap­pealed a rul­ing by the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties that eight Mus­lim men who had gone to Venezuela to seek Sau­di Ara­bi­an visas and were de­tained should be held with­out re­course to bail, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has said.The ap­peal is ex­pect­ed to be heard with­in the next two weeks. The men were ar­rest­ed on sus­pi­cion of plot­ting to over­throw the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment and oth­er ter­ror­ism charges.

Dook­er­an spoke about the is­sue in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Tow­er D, Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. He said with re­spect to the eight men who are still in de­ten­tion, T&T's am­bas­sador in Cara­cas had been li­ais­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure le­gal ac­cess for the group.Dook­er­an added: "The Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties have ruled that the de­fen­dants be held with­out re­course to bail. The T&T em­bassy is work­ing with le­gal coun­sel and an ap­peal to this rul­ing has been lodged."

"I'm in­formed the ap­peal is ex­pect­ed to be heard in ten to 15 days. The mat­ter is still un­der the in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry process."Dook­er­an said he and Rear Ad­mi­ral Richard Kelshall, who led a T&T fact-find­ing mis­sion, are main­tain­ing reg­u­lar con­tact with T&T's am­bas­sador in Cara­cas.He added: "This is­sue has caused much an­guish in our so­ci­ety, un­der­stand­ably so, and I em­pathise with those per­sons who have been af­fect­ed.

"How­ev­er, in our re­la­tions with oth­er states in­clud­ing Venezuela, while mak­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions on be­half of our cit­i­zens, we must al­so abide by the laws of that state. I as­sure you that all diplo­mat­ic ef­forts are be­ing made and we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port for cit­i­zens who in their law­ful pur­suits are af­fect­ed by these de­vel­op­ments."

Mean­while, Dook­er­an said arrange­ments have been put in place for T&T na­tion­als to ob­tain Sau­di Ara­bi­an visas in this coun­try. He said T&T and the Sau­di Ara­bi­an gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished for­mal diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions in Ju­ly 1974 and the gov­ern­ments are ap­point­ing hon­orary con­suls in T&T and in Sau­di Ara­bia.

Over the years T&T na­tion­als have trav­elled to Cara­cas to ap­ply for visas to vis­it Sau­di Ara­bia for Ha­jj, but Dook­er­an added that in re­cent years, arrange­ments have been made with the Sau­di Ara­bi­an gov­ern­ment to have im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers trav­el to T&T to process ap­pli­ca­tions, and last year three Sau­di Ara­bi­an of­fi­cials came to T&T to is­sue visas.Say­ing he met with Sau­di Ara­bi­an Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dr Fa­hah Al Da­wood in T&T re­cent­ly, Dook­er­an said top­ics dis­cussed in­clud­ed the in­crease in visa al­lo­ca­tions.

"It's an­tic­i­pat­ed for Ha­jj 2014 the Sau­di Ara­bi­an gov­ern­ment will again send im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers to T&T to process visa ap­pli­ca­tions. As soon as the dates are con­firmed we'll in­form the pub­lic ac­cord­ing­ly," Dook­er­an added.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Twen­ty-three T&T cit­i­zens were de­tained by Venezue­lan in­tel­li­gence ser­vices on March 19. Dook­er­an said he'd been ad­vised those de­tained had gone to Venezuela to ob­tain visas to vis­it Sau­di Ara­bia, and he'd been in touch with Venezue­lan For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Elias Jose Jaua Mi­lano.A sev­en-mem­ber T&T mis­sion head­ed by Kelshall, with le­gal and in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers, went to Venezuela on March 27-28 and se­cured the re­lease of 15 women and chil­dren, all of whom have since re­turned to T&T.