An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

More than 24 hours af­ter Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu was re­leased by kid­nap­pers along the North Coast of Trinidad af­ter a ran­som com­prised of both TT and US cur­ren­cy was paid, ne­go­ti­a­tions were said to be con­tin­u­ing to se­cure the safe re­lease of his wife Clara­belle Tardieu.

Guardian Me­dia learned that TT$150,000 and just over US$5,000 (ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$34,000) was paid to the ab­duc­tors; and led to Tardieu’s (D) re­lease around 1 am on De­cem­ber 17.

The 70-year-old busi­ness­man was re­port­ed­ly picked up by po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cial­ist units, fol­low­ing his re­lease on Wednes­day.

There was no up­date from ei­ther the fam­i­ly or po­lice re­gard­ing Clara­belle Tardieu, 47, up to late yes­ter­day.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial would on­ly say, “The mat­ter is at a sen­si­tive stage right now and we do not want to jeop­ar­dise any­thing.”

News of Tardieu’s (D) safe re­turn was con­firmed in a re­lease from at­tor­ney Leslie-Ann Lucky-Sama­roo on Wednes­day, who is act­ing on be­half of the fam­i­ly.

It read, “The fam­i­ly of Der­rick Tardieu wish­es to share that their loved one, Der­rick, has been re­leased. He is at present seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion and care and needs time to re­cov­er from his or­deal. His fam­i­ly ap­pre­ci­ates the kind words, sup­port and es­pe­cial­ly prayers through­out this dif­fi­cult time. The fam­i­ly humbly asks that you re­spect their pri­va­cy and the pri­va­cy of their loved one as they re­cov­er.”

A US$2.5 mil­lion ran­som had been de­mand­ed for the re­turn of the cou­ple who were snatched from their home at Blanchette Bay, Monos Is­land, on De­cem­ber 13.

This was lat­er re­duced to TT$100,000.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials de­clined to con­firm just how much mon­ey had been paid for their safe re­lease, ex­cept to say that, “A ran­som was paid.”

The cou­ple was re­port­ed­ly snatched by per­sons be­lieved to be Colom­bians and Tardieu was forced to record a video un­der duress with a gun point­ed at his head and a grenade at his chest.

Al­though sev­er­al em­ploy­ees at Tardieu Ma­rine in Ch­aguara­mas re­fused to speak with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one man would on­ly say he was “re­lieved and hap­py” that Tardieu (D) had been re­leased safe­ly.