Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Na­dia Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton, wife of for­mer sol­dier Bryan Bar­ring­ton who is de­tained in con­nec­tion with a re­port­ed as­sas­si­na­tion plot against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three Cab­i­net min­is­ters, is pray­ing fer­vent­ly for his re­lease so they can spend their first Christ­mas to­geth­er with their one-month-old daugh­ter, Ruho­nia.

She says Bar­ring­ton want­ed to be there for his lit­tle girl, es­pe­cial­ly since he nev­er spent much time with his first child, now 14. Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton de­nies re­ports that her hus­band was "dis­hon­ourably dis­charged from the army". She said since Bar­ring­ton left the De­fence Force he has changed his life around and had start­ed a bar­beque busi­ness at Buen In­ten­to Road, Princes Town.

"He lives for our lit­tle ba­by daugh­ter. He would comb her hair and he say he will blow dry her hair un­til she be­comes 30 years old," Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton said. Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton says she has not been able to speak with her hus­band since his de­ten­tion by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers last week Tues­day. She said when he was tak­en in­to cus­tody po­lice of­fi­cers told him they need­ed his help to in­ves­ti­gate an in­ci­dent.

"They nev­er told him they car­ry­ing him down in cus­tody. One of the po­lice didn't want to put on hand­cuffs on him but the oth­er said to hand­cuff him," Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton re­called.She ex­plained that Bar­ring­ton is very prayer­ful and is a de­vout Mus­lim.She claims be­fore they be­came in­volved, he was a Ro­man Catholic but he got a call­ing from the Cre­ator and lat­er con­vert­ed to Is­lam.

Ba­boolal-Bar­ring­ton in­sists that her hus­band did not have any con­nec­tion with the oth­er de­tainees.Her moth­er, Mar­jorie John-Williams said she has lost the Christ­mas spir­it since the ar­rest. "This is wicked­ness. Right now all the neigh­bours shoo-shoo­ing about us. This is an em­bar­rass­ment to the fam­i­ly but God don't sleep," she said. John-Williams de­scribed her son-in-law as a hard­work­ing man who is com­mit­ted to his wife and chil­dren.

Bar­ring­ton's fa­ther, ca­lyp­son­ian Kaiso Nob­bie (Nob­bie Bar­ring­ton), re­mains puz­zled by his son's ar­rest. "When the state of emer­gency be­gan I told him to stay away from the po­lice. He said he did not have any­thing to hide," Nob­bie said. He said one day be­fore his son was ar­rest­ed, he went to the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny to get a loan to ex­pand his bar­beque busi­ness.

Bar­ring­ton, is a trained marks­man and his wife said he left the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force af­ter his ac­quit­tal of the No­vem­ber 12, 2000, mur­der of Ju­nior Om­bie Fred­er­icks.