RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of a fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty in south Trinidad have con­firmed that a man Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties claim was part of a group al­leged­ly caught plot­ting to desta­bilise their gov­ern­ment, is in­deed Trinida­di­an. How­ev­er, they are still in dis­be­lief that he could be part of such a plot.

The man, iden­ti­fied as Gis Kendel Jheron by Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, is orig­i­nal­ly from Gibbs Trace, Clax­ton Bay, but res­i­dents said he had been liv­ing in the Oth­a­heite Bay area be­fore re­port­ed­ly leav­ing for Venezuela two years ago.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a vis­it by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, lo­cals, who knew him by the nick­name “Am­brose” and “Kendel Gibbs,” said the al­le­ga­tions be­ing made against him do not align with the man they re­mem­ber.

“He nor­mal, he is no ter­ror­ist,” one fish­er­man told Guardian Me­dia, shak­ing his head.

An­oth­er man said to be close to Jheron, laughed off the claims made on Venezue­lan state tele­vi­sion.

“Kendel don’t have that kind of rank. He not in­to that,” he said.

At Oth­a­heite Bay, how­ev­er, those who knew Jheron said he was “shady.” A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said he was pre­vi­ous­ly known as Kendel Gibbs be­fore re­port­ed­ly chang­ing his name up­on mov­ing to Venezuela.

“Peo­ple right through the penin­su­la know Kendel. He brings in the goods from Colom­bia,” he said.

The source al­so said Kendel had sur­vived mul­ti­ple kid­nap­pings over the years, al­leged­ly at the hands of Venezue­lan crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“He used to sell fish here be­fore he left, a nor­mal reg­u­lar guy,” an­oth­er fish­er­man said.

“Peo­ple say all kinds of things about him, ... that he had a Venezue­lan wife, but around here, he was just Am­brose. Every­body knew him.”

Oth­er lo­cals claimed Jheron had con­nec­tions in both Venezuela and T&T and was known to fa­cil­i­tate cer­tain “op­er­a­tions” at the bay.

“You want some­thing to come in, Kendel will link you,” said one source, though he ad­mit­ted those days seemed long past.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents con­firmed that Jheron’s fam­i­ly had dis­tanced them­selves from him in re­cent years. One source said he had reached out to rel­a­tives from abroad, re­port­ed­ly dur­ing in­car­cer­a­tion, seek­ing fi­nan­cial help and cloth­ing.

De­spite the swirling ru­mours and se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions from Cara­cas, many in Oth­a­heite re­main scep­ti­cal about the al­le­ga­tions made by the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

“He wasn’t no king­pin,” said one el­der­ly fish­er­man.

“And I doubt he try­ing to over­throw any gov­ern­ment.”

Speak­ing dur­ing his tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do last week, Ca­bel­lo al­leged that Jheron was part of a “ter­ror­ist group” at­tempt­ing to en­ter Venezuela via T&T. Hold­ing up a phone while ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence, Ca­bel­lo said the man was cap­tured last Mon­day and is cur­rent­ly de­tained un­der “close pro­tec­tion” with “re­spect for his hu­man rights.”

In re­sponse, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar swift­ly dis­missed the claims, with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of De­fence both stat­ing that there was cur­rent­ly no ev­i­dence to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on the Coast Guard to use ‘dead­ly force’ against any uniden­ti­fied ves­sel that at­tempt­ed to en­ter T&T wa­ters from Venezuela.

On Mon­day, Ca­bel­lo called Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment “crazy” and de­nied the ex­is­tence of any plan to in­vade T&T. He ar­gued that Cara­cas’ re­al con­cern lies in the al­leged en­try of a “ter­ror­ist” group from T&T, which his regime blamed for smug­gling weapons in­to Venezuela.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge ask­ing about the re­cent rev­e­la­tions but there was no re­sponse. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Wayne Mys­tar al­so could not be reached for com­ment.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Sean Sobers with ques­tions re­gard­ing whether T&T had re­quest­ed con­sular ac­cess to Jheron, and what diplo­mat­ic steps were be­ing tak­en to safe­guard his rights while in Venezue­lan cus­tody.

Sim­i­lar en­quiries were al­so sent to the Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Ál­varo En­rique Sánchez Cordero, seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the ev­i­dence link­ing Jheron to al­leged ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ty and as­sur­ances about the trans­paren­cy of the le­gal process he faces.

Ques­tions were al­so sent to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. How­ev­er, up to press time, there was no re­sponse from ei­ther par­ty.