An­na-Lisa Paul

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who is head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), has com­mit­ted to bring­ing back over 100 T&T na­tion­als, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren cur­rent­ly held at de­ten­tion camps and jails in Syr­ia and Iraq.

How­ev­er, while there are tech­ni­cal is­sues that need to be sort­ed out and de­ter­mi­na­tions on how cost­ly the ex­er­cise will be, of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said, “The Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to repa­tri­at­ing our cit­i­zens, but we have all agreed it is a mat­ter that is of a high­ly tech­ni­cal na­ture.”

Con­firm­ing this fol­low­ing a two-hour meet­ing with PM Row­ley and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil at White Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed ex­plained, “It in­volves in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, it in­volves oth­er coun­tries. We’ve got to col­lab­o­rate and to co-op­er­ate and to seek as­sis­tance where as­sis­tance is re­quired and that kind of thing.”

Al­so present at the meet­ing was At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

Mo­hammed has been ap­point­ed to head a three-man com­mit­tee to over­see the process along­side the lo­cal­ly based fam­i­lies of the Tri­ni na­tion­als who will go through the process. The oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee are for­mer am­bas­sador Patrick Ed­wards and lo­cal Is­lam­ic leader Kwe­si At­i­ba.

Emerg­ing from the meet­ing around 5 pm, Mo­hammed de­scribed it as “rather com­pre­hen­sive.”

“A lot of dis­cus­sions have tak­en place and we have looked at all the ram­i­fi­ca­tions sur­round­ing the re­turn of our peo­ple from Syr­ia,” Mo­hammed told re­porters camped out­side.

“It is es­ti­mat­ed that you have over 100 of our peo­ple out there and each one is go­ing to be a spe­cial case. There­fore, you can un­der­stand how com­pli­cat­ed and te­dious, pos­si­bly a very te­dious ex­er­cise.”

He stressed, “It is not a sim­ple mat­ter of just tak­ing our peo­ple and bring­ing them back home. All the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this sit­u­a­tion are such that they have all kinds of in­ter­na­tion­al im­pli­ca­tions and the Gov­ern­ment, though it is com­mit­ted, has to be very thor­ough in its ap­proach.”

Mo­hammed said while a spe­cif­ic frame­work had not been out­lined dur­ing the meet­ing, “some more fun­da­men­tal ac­tion is in the mak­ing right now.”

Ad­dress­ing rel­a­tives of some of the de­tainees, who are anx­ious to have their loved ones re­turn home, Mo­hammed re­vealed, “Even be­fore this meet­ing, we have been meet­ing with rel­a­tives, we have been meet­ing with re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, the lead­er­ship of the Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tions, and we have been telling them that the feed­back that we have got­ten from Gov­ern­ment, and more par­tic­u­lar­ly the Prime Min­is­ter, is that the Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about this repa­tri­a­tion is­sue.”

He re­it­er­at­ed that with so many as­so­ci­at­ed tech­ni­cal is­sues which are time con­sum­ing, they would have to meet with de­tainees’ rel­a­tives to see how much in­for­ma­tion they can pro­vide to the au­thor­i­ties to see to what ex­tent the process can be ex­pe­di­at­ed.

But he was care­ful not to as­cribe any time­lines. He said al­though there is no plan or sched­uled meet­ing with PM Row­ley just yet, yes­ter­day’s meet­ing had opened com­mu­ni­ca­tion lines.

“Cer­tain steps are go­ing to be tak­en, talk­ing with dif­fer­ent mis­sions abroad and that kind of thing, and those are the sorts of ac­tiv­i­ties that are go­ing to be tak­ing place be­fore we come up with some­thing sub­stan­tial,” Mo­hammed said.

Asked to say if the Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee’s man­date had been fac­tored in dur­ing yes­ter­day’s dis­cus­sions, Mo­hammed said while he be­lieved it was still in ex­is­tence, they did not dis­cuss the work of the Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee and where they are at the mo­ment.

“We were main­ly con­cerned with re­port­ing what we have done so far, and how we can build on what we have al­ready es­tab­lished, and that is, you know, the link­ages that we have es­tab­lished be­tween the fam­i­ly mem­bers and the lead­ers of the com­mu­ni­ties.”

In Au­gust 2018, then Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young con­sti­tut­ed a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary and mul­ti-agency to deal with pos­si­ble repa­tri­a­tion and rein­te­gra­tion of T&T cit­i­zens be­ing held in refugee and de­ten­tion camps in Syr­ia and Iraq.

This team was dubbed the Nightin­gale Team, which in­cludes mem­bers of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU); Ter­ror­ist In­ter­dic­tion Unit; Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Branch; Child Pro­tec­tion Unit; An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Desk; Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA); Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty; Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU); An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing/Com­bat­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism (AML/CFT) Com­pli­ance Unit; and the In­tel­li­gence Ser­vices.

Re­tired diplo­mat Ed­wards has been named li­ai­son of­fi­cer of the cur­rent team. He is set to meet with at least two min­is­ters as he deals with some of the in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues.

Mo­hammed, along with At­i­ba, are to meet with rel­a­tives as ear­ly as pos­si­ble to give them a brief­ing on what had tak­en place and where the Gov­ern­ment will be head­ing from here on.

Asked how much this repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise will cost tax­pay­ers, Mo­hammed said it was still too ear­ly to an­swer that.

“We have not yet ar­rived at that, but I know one thing is cer­tain and that is, it is go­ing to be very cost­ly. But we have not yet got­ten to that stage.”

It is be­lieved that more than 90 T&T na­tion­als with al­leged ISIS links, in­clud­ing 56 chil­dren and 12 women, are be­ing held at the Roj and Al-Hol De­ten­tion Camps in north-east Syr­ia.