Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is claim­ing his name has been placed on an In­ter­pol watch list and is now de­mand­ing an­swers from both Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro about what al­leged crime trig­gered the list­ing.

Row­ley sus­pects a ma­li­cious ef­fort is un­der­way by “gov­ern­ment agen­cies” to dam­age his rep­u­ta­tion and wants them to re­move his name from the list.

How­ev­er, CoP Gue­var­ro says checks with In­ter­pol have re­vealed no alerts, flags, or war­rants linked to Dr Row­ley in their sys­tem. And Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar is now call­ing on Row­ley to now apol­o­gise to the na­tion.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at his Good­wood Park home yes­ter­day, Row­ley said the first red flag came dur­ing his trav­el to An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, en route to Montser­rat, on Ju­ly 13. He said he pre­sent­ed his diplo­mat­ic pass­port to of­fi­cials at VC Bird In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Row­ley said the of­fi­cial stepped away in­to an of­fice and af­ter what he de­scribed as “a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od,” re­turned with a no­tice­ably dif­fer­ent, though still cor­dial, de­meanour. He said he was es­cort­ed by An­tiguan se­cu­ri­ty to an ex­ec­u­tive lounge. It was at that point, he be­gan to grow con­cerned.

“And then I was told that the rea­son why I was de­layed is be­cause I was on a watch list,” he said.

Row­ley said he even­tu­al­ly made it to Montser­rat but when he re­turned to An­tigua a week lat­er, he was again told he was on a “list.” How­ev­er, fur­ther en­quiries led to a su­per­vi­sor in­form­ing him it was a case of “mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty.”

“And I asked, mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty with whom? And she said an­oth­er per­son who may not have, may not have the same birth date as you. All right, I asked, and who is in­ter­est­ed in that per­son? She said, An­tigua po­lice. And that’s when I got very con­cerned,” Row­ley ex­plained.

Row­ley said when he re­turned to T&T he used “cer­tain con­tacts” to seek more in­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter, and it was then he was told his name is on an In­ter­pol list.

“And then the ques­tion aris­es, how did I get on In­ter­pol’s list? And it is crys­tal clear to me that my name could on­ly have gone to In­ter­pol from an en­ti­ty or en­ti­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Row­ley why An­tiguan of­fi­cials told him it was a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, and he said he be­lieves the of­fi­cial was be­ing “kind.”

Row­ley said T&T has an In­ter­pol Na­tion­al Cen­tral Bu­reau and its head is the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. There­fore, he said he be­lieves, if in fact he is on an In­ter­pol list, Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro must have knowl­edge of it.

“I call this de­vel­op­ment noth­ing more than a das­tard­ly defama­tion fab­ri­cat­ed, con­struct­ed, and ex­e­cut­ed by the gov­ern­ment agen­cies of Trinidad and To­ba­go, led by a Gov­ern­ment which seems to be more in­ter­est­ed in ret­ri­bu­tion, hate, spite, di­vi­sive­ness. And such a gov­ern­ment will put the stain on Trinidad and To­ba­go. On­ly such a gov­ern­ment will put this stain on Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Row­ley said the en­tire or­deal has left him scan­dalised, un­sur­prised and a bit an­gry. He said what tran­spired re­mind­ed him of some­thing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said in the Par­lia­ment.

“As At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the coun­try’s chief law en­force­ment of­fi­cer, who should be pro­tect­ing the rights of all cit­i­zens, doesn’t mat­ter which side of the floor he’s in Par­lia­ment, get­ting up in the Par­lia­ment and point­ing at Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and say­ing, I comin for you, for you and for you. And I watched that and was ap­palled. And I saw no ob­jec­tion to that from quar­ters in this coun­try. Ap­par­ent­ly, we are nor­mal­is­ing that kind of be­hav­iour in this coun­try. And I ex­pe­ri­enced it last week.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Row­ley if he at­tempt­ed to speak with the CoP since his re­turn from An­tigua but he said he did not.

Soon af­ter Row­ley’s claims, the CoP, via a state­ment, said the TTPS, via its In­ter­pol Bu­reau, had ini­ti­at­ed a re­view of in­ter­nal sys­tems.

“Com­pre­hen­sive checks were con­duct­ed across In­ter­pol’s se­cure data­bas­es which yield­ed a de­fin­i­tive re­sult: Dr Row­ley is not list­ed on any In­ter­pol watch list or in­ter­na­tion­al no­tice. No alerts, flags, or war­rants are as­so­ci­at­ed with his name in In­ter­pol’s sys­tems. More­over, the TTPS con­firms that it has not sub­mit­ted, nor caused to be sub­mit­ted, any in­for­ma­tion to In­ter­pol that would jus­ti­fy such a list­ing. There is no record, di­rec­tive, or pro­ce­dur­al ac­tion from any de­part­ment with­in the TTPS that sup­ports the al­le­ga­tion of lo­cal in­volve­ment in the mat­ter.”

The TTPS clar­i­fied that the CoP does not have the au­thor­i­ty to uni­lat­er­al­ly add or re­move in­di­vid­u­als from In­ter­pol sys­tems.

The TTPS al­so took is­sue with Row­ley’s in­ter­fer­ence claims.

PM re­sponds

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that Row­ley now owes T&T a “long-over­due” apol­o­gy, as cit­i­zens de­serve bet­ter than “reck­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and base­less claims.”

She said af­ter near­ly a decade of mis­man­age­ment, Row­ley has now re-emerged to lev­el “spu­ri­ous, un­found­ed and in­flam­ma­to­ry al­le­ga­tions” against the CoP.

The PM said rather than seek a di­rect ex­pla­na­tion from the TTPS, which any re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen would have done, Row­ley chose to broad­cast in­sin­u­a­tions of a po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven in­ter­na­tion­al smear cam­paign.

The PM said, “Now that the facts are be­ing clar­i­fied by the TTPS and the fog of sen­sa­tion­al­ism be­gins to lift, per­haps Dr Row­ley should once again sum­mon the me­dia, not to fan the flames of para­noia, but to is­sue a full and un­re­served apol­o­gy to the na­tion.”

At­tempts to reach An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne on Row­ley’s claims yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful. Ques­tions were al­so sent to In­ter­pol but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time.