Gail Alexan­der

"Don't even think about in­ter­ro­gat­ing my hus­band."

This was the an­gry warn­ing to Gov­ern­ment and the po­lice yes­ter­day from Sad­di­qua Piti­lal, wife of one of the five T&T men now await­ing de­por­ta­tion home from Venezuela af­ter last Sat­ur­day's court ver­dict against them.

Mrs Piti­lal made it clear any at­tempt to ques­tion her hus­band on his re­turn home should not be done with­out his at­tor­ney at his side.

The five – Do­minic Piti­lal, Wade Charles, Leslie Dais­ley, An­dre Bat­ters­by and Asim Luq­man – were de­tained in Venezuela since March 19, 2014.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice yes­ter­day con­firmed they were held on ter­ror­ism-re­lat­ed charges.

Dur­ing a May meet­ing in Port-of-Spain be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro, Gov­ern­ment asked for the mat­ter re­gard­ing the men to be ex­pe­dit­ed but stressed it could not in­ter­fere in an­oth­er State's ju­di­cial process.

Much lat­er, the charges were changed to in­ten­tion to com­mit es­pi­onage and to com­mit a crim­i­nal act. Around 1.30 am last Sat­ur­day, the men were found guilty by the Venezue­lan court.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice, in an up­date yes­ter­day, stat­ed:

"These five in­di­vid­u­als were sub­ject­ed to a ju­di­cial process in the courts of Venezuela in ac­cor­dance with due process. Le­gal pro­ceed­ings were re­cent­ly com­plet­ed and the in­di­vid­u­als were found guilty of cer­tain crim­i­nal of­fences and sen­tenced.

"The learned tri­al judge fur­ther held that the guilty in­di­vid­u­als had served their sen­tences, hav­ing been in­car­cer­at­ed since March 2014. Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to re­ceive in­for­ma­tion from the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment with re­spect to pend­ing de­por­ta­tion and will at the ap­pro­pri­ate time pro­vide fur­ther de­tails. "

The AG's of­fice stat­ed the men were be­ing pre­pared for re­lease from Venezuela's Se­bin prison and de­por­ta­tion to Trinidad.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon said yes­ter­day he had no in­for­ma­tion on the re­turn date. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses, deny­ing tele­vi­sion claims it was to­day, said: "We're fol­low­ing it close­ly."

Mrs Piti­lal, Do­minic Piti­lal's wife, said no of­fi­cial has con­tact­ed the fam­i­lies. She warned off au­thor­i­ties from ques­tion­ing or in­ter­ro­gat­ing her hus­band af­ter not­ing Dil­lon had con­firmed the men would be ques­tioned on their ar­rival in T&T.

She said: "I would like to tell the min­is­ter and po­lice they bet­ter bat in their crease this time. They're not go­ing to vi­o­late the rights of my hus­band. He has le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and un­der no cir­cum­stances is he go­ing to be in­ter­ro­gat­ed or have his civ­il rights vi­o­lat­ed this time around again.

"Even if they ask his name, he must have his lawyer sit­ting right next to him to an­swer. I'm very se­ri­ous. It's two years-plus he suf­fered in jail and his rights must be pro­tect­ed."

Mrs Piti­lal said she spoke to her hus­band yes­ter­day morn­ing and phys­i­cal­ly the men ap­pear okay but nei­ther she nor they had any idea when they would be de­port­ed.

"They packed to leave since last Sat­ur­day morn­ing af­ter the tri­al but all my hus­band said they are telling them is they have work to do to process the sit­u­a­tion. No­body told them when they're go­ing home. So they're still locked up in jail. I's il­le­gal.

"None of the fam­i­lies heard any­thing. We un­der­stand there would be pa­per­work but no­body even con­tact­ed us. The (TT) em­bassy should have some­thing in place to han­dle the mat­ter prop­er­ly," she added.

En­ter­prise Imam Taulib Sear­les said a Venezue­lan as­so­ciate who had as­sist­ed the men with their case in Venezuela would ar­rive in T&T to­day.

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said the men's fam­i­lies con­tact­ed him yes­ter­day in the ab­sence of in­for­ma­tion to find out how the re­turn might be done.