Ali­cia Llanos

The Venezue­lan na­tion­al sus­pect­ed of burn­ing his coun­try's na­tion­al flag has been sent back home.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Maria Eu­ge­nia Mar­cano said the man who al­so al­leged­ly de­stroyed the em­bassy's com­mu­ni­ca­tion wiring was sent to Venezuela yes­ter­day morn­ing. Mar­cano said no charges had been laid against him but both Trinida­di­an and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties were con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. She said: "It was not clear as to why he was in Trinidad." Mar­cano said the man told au­thor­i­ties he was in Trinidad for busi­ness and was hav­ing prob­lems with his fi­nan­cial links, which was why he could not pay his ho­tel and restau­rant bill.

She said this seemed "strange," ask­ing: "What busi­ness­man has

no mon­ey?" Mar­cano said au­thor­i­ties dis­cov­ered the man had two plane tick­ets, with dif­fer­ent dates, to leave Trinidad. She said the man al­so had a ques­tion­able back­ground, say­ing he re­ceived his Chilean pass­port 20 years ago, had lived in Mi­a­mi and there were nu­mer­ous en­try stamps in­to South Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries. Mar­cano said she had held dis­cus­sions with the Venezue­lan Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs who want­ed to as­sure T&T that all good re­la­tions would con­tin­ue.

She said the man was still a sus­pect and un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion in Venezuela, but was not re­leased to Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties since, no charges had been laid against him. On Mon­day morn­ing, em­ploy­ees of the Venezue­lan em­bassy found the man asleep in front of the premis­es. He said he was seek­ing po­lit­i­cal asy­lum af­ter he was evict­ed from a Port-of-Spain ho­tel and tak­en to the em­bassy by po­lice af­ter he failed to pay a bill at a Port-of-Spain restau­rant on Sun­day. Em­ploy­ees then dis­cov­ered the na­tion­al flag in front of the build­ing had been burnt and the em­bassy's com­mu­ni­ca­tion wiring de­stroyed. Po­lice from the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion were called and the man was held.