Gail Alexan­der

The five T&T na­tion­als who have been in a Venezue­lan prison since March 2014 will be re­unit­ed with their fam­i­lies lat­er this morn­ing.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, told T&T Guardian yes­ter­day there had been re­cent de­vel­op­ments in Venezuela on the men's re­turn. He con­firmed arrange­ments were be­ing made to bring them home.

Is­lam­ic Front leader, Umar Ab­dul­lah, said the men were ex­pect­ed to ar­rive at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at noon.

Among peo­ple Ab­dul­lah thanked for the out­come was the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment.

"Al­ham­duil­lah! (All Praise and Thanks is Due to Al­lah),"Ab­dul­lah added.

The five–Do­minic Piti­lal, Wade Charles, Asim Luq­man, An­dre Bat­ters­by and Leslie Daise­ly–were de­tained in Venezuela on sus­pi­cion of ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties.

Af­ter the Gov­ern­ment asked Venezuela to ex­pe­dite the mat­ter, the charges were changed a few months ago to in­ten­tion to com­mit es­pi­onage and a crim­i­nal act. The men were found guilty and al­lowed time al­ready served.

Fol­low­ing their last court hear­ing, how­ev­er, the men re­mained at the Se­bin prison where they had been de­tained since 2014. Yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives said they were re­moved from Se­bin on Wednes­day and up to yes­ter­day were with Venezue­lan im­mi­gra­tion prepar­ing to re­turn.

Ab­dul­lah said the five will de­part Cara­cas at 11 am to­day, via Vene­zolana Flight #AW 1303Y.

He added: "It's ex­pect­ed when they ar­rive they will meet with im­mi­gra­tion and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials af­ter which they will re­unite with their fam­i­lies. Fol­low­ing this they will be tak­en to a health fa­cil­i­ty where they will all un­der­go a thor­ough med­ical check-up.

"We are over­joyed at this de­vel­op­ment. We thank all who have as­sist­ed and have made this jour­ney with us. Spe­cial thanks to the me­dia; to our lawyers, Flavio May­or­ga Rollins, Ger­man Ponte Arau­jo and Nafeesa Mo­hammed, our em­bassy of­fi­cials in Cara­cas, Am­bas­sador Paul Bayn­ham and con­sul and sec­ond sec­re­tary Dayne-Marc Chin Slick, Obis­po Jyl­man Red Ju­ra­do Far­fan, the Bish­op of Hu­man Rights for Venezuela and the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley."

On Tues­day, Sad­di­qua Piti­lal, wife of one of the men, said the fam­i­lies were be­ing pa­tient. She said they had spo­ken to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon last week and were will­ing to wait.

Yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, a for­mer PNM deputy leader, who had led the lo­cal charge on the is­sue, said: "This is a time of great thanks­giv­ing, I will be at the air­port to wel­come them."

Rel­a­tives are hop­ing their re-en­try "would be easy."