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Monday, July 28, 2025

TTPS denies INTERPOL watch list claim by Dr Rowley

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
6 days ago
20250721
T&T Police Service Administration Building in Port of Spain.

T&T Police Service Administration Building in Port of Spain.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has re­ject­ed claims by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, that he was placed on an IN­TER­POL watch list dur­ing re­cent trav­el through An­tigua and Montser­rat.

In a pub­lic state­ment, the TTPS con­firmed that checks through its IN­TER­POL Bu­reau found no such list­ing, red no­tice, alert or flag linked to Dr Row­ley’s name.

“Dr Row­ley is not list­ed on any IN­TER­POL watch list or in­ter­na­tion­al no­tice,” the TTPS stat­ed, adding that it had nev­er sub­mit­ted any in­for­ma­tion to IN­TER­POL that could 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 re­lease as­sert­ed.

The TTPS said IN­TER­POL op­er­ates un­der strict pro­to­cols re­quir­ing of­fi­cial ju­di­cial or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al re­quests for such list­ings. It not­ed that these are man­aged through each coun­try's Na­tion­al Cen­tral Bu­reau, which in Trinidad and To­ba­go falls un­der the purview of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, but does not give him uni­lat­er­al au­thor­i­ty to place or re­move names.

Re­spond­ing to Dr Row­ley’s sug­ges­tion of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and state-spon­sored defama­tion, the TTPS in­sist­ed it re­mains an “in­de­pen­dent and apo­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion”, say­ing there was no ev­i­dence of po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed con­duct by any of its of­fi­cers in re­la­tion to the mat­ter.

Dr Row­ley’s claims stem from an in­ci­dent dur­ing his re­cent trav­el. He re­count­ed two sep­a­rate en­coun­ters at An­tigua’s im­mi­gra­tion check­points while tran­sit­ing to Montser­rat, then again on his re­turn.

He said in both in­stances, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers scanned his diplo­mat­ic pass­port and then de­tained him tem­porar­i­ly be­fore es­cort­ing him to an ex­ec­u­tive lounge.

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

The for­mer PM said on his re­turn trip, he was again stopped, and a su­per­vi­sor told him the is­sue was due to mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty.

“I asked, mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty with whom?” he re­count­ed to the me­dia.

Back in Trinidad, Dr Row­ley said he made checks through CARI­COM con­tacts where he said he con­firmed he was on the IN­TER­POL list.

He ques­tioned how his name could have end­ed up in IN­TER­POL’s sys­tem, and point­ed to pos­si­ble ac­tion from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

In its re­lease, the TTPS main­tained that pub­lic com­men­tary on such se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions must be based on fact.

It called for “re­spon­si­ble di­a­logue”, warn­ing that rep­u­ta­tion­al harm and in­sti­tu­tion­al trust are at stake.


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