Fran­cis Joseph

Trinida­di­an fugi­tive Rick Gomes, who had been on the run for more than ten years, was fi­nal­ly ex­tra­dit­ed to Trinidad from the Unit­ed King­dom late yes­ter­day. Gomes ar­rived at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca, at 7.11 pm in com­pa­ny with four po­lice­men from the lo­cal In­ter­pol branch. Gomes, who is want­ed for traf­fick­ing co­caine and pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, was hand­ed over to the prison au­thor­i­ties where he will be kept un­til a date has been set for him to face a sec­ond tri­al on the co­caine and gun charges. Since his ar­rest in Lon­don in May 2006, Gomes, 47, has been fight­ing his ex­tra­di­tion to Trinidad. How­ev­er, his luck ran out on Mon­day be­fore a High Court judge in Lon­don, who or­dered that he be sent to Trinidad.

The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty Unit of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's cham­bers was in­formed on Tues­day, and by Thurs­day af­ter­noon, two lo­cal po­lice­men were on their way to Lon­don to bring Gomes back home. The two po­lice­men wast­ed lit­tle time in Lon­don, col­lect­ing Gomes at Heathrow In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, and board­ed a Vir­gin At­lantic flight for Bar­ba­dos. Af­ter touch­ing down at Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Bar­ba­dos, Gomes was put on one of the T&T Air Guard's planes and flown di­rect­ly to Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. The air­craft touched down at Pi­ar­co at 5.20 pm, but the In­ter­pol of­fi­cers ex­pe­ri­enced bu­reau­cra­cy at its high­est. The im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers were chang­ing shift at 6 pm, so no one could have dealt with Gomes be­fore the shift changed.

Even­tu­al­ly, Gomes was processed just be­fore 7 pm and he was qui­et­ly whisked off in a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. He had been fight­ing ex­tra­di­tion, say­ing the con­di­tions of the pris­ons in Trinidad were ap­palling. For­mer chief in­spec­tor of pris­ons and pre­sid­ing judge, Lord Rams­bot­tom, was in­struct­ed as an ex­pert and vis­it­ed the T&T pris­ons. He found the prison con­di­tions in Trinidad bet­ter than what ex­ist in the UK, and rec­om­mend­ed that Gomes be ex­tra­dit­ed and kept at the new­ly-built Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment gave a diplo­mat­ic as­sur­ance that Gomes would not be held in any prison oth­er than the MSP. That as­sur­ance was pre­sent­ed to the judge on Mon­day in Lon­don and the ex­tra­di­tion or­der was signed.