PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Tuesday August 2, 2016 – Turkish media is reporting that nine Trinidadians are due to be deported after authorities foiled a plan by a Syrian man to smuggle them from southern Turkey to join ISIS in Syria.
And Trinidad and Tobago’s Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi is assuring the country that the men will be kept under strict surveillance when they were sent back home, even as he indicated that evidence was being gathered to determine what charges they could face.
According to the Turkish media, police stopped a car in which the nine were travelling and detained them and their Syrian driver on suspicion. Sources told the media that initial investigations discovered the driver was trying to take foreigners to be recruited by the terrorist organization, ISIS, in Syria.
The man was remanded in custody and the Trinidadians transferred to an immigration centre for deportation.
Al-Rawi told the Trinidad Guardian yesterday that ISIS was listed in the local courts as an internationally recognized terror group, and if any of the twin-island republic’s citizens were found outside the country attempting to engage with the group, the law would take effect.
“At the end of the day anybody in an alleged circumstance of terrorism has to face the courts. There is due process and it must be done fairly but at the same time you have to take an intelligence-based approach to this,” he told the newspaper.
Earlier this year, in January, a Turkish newspaper reported that four Trinidad and Tobago nationals were among 961 foreign members of ISIS captured by Turkish forces.