Shane Superville
Senior Reporter
shane.superville@guardian.co.tt
National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds says local criminals fleeing to the United Kingdom to seek asylum to “avoid accountability to the law,” was one of the reasons T&T nationals now require a visa to travel there.
On Wednesday, British High Commissioner to T&T Jon Dean revealed that T&T citizens would no longer be eligible to travel to the UK under the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme and would require a visa to enter the country.
The decision, he said, was due to a spike in the number of locals seeking asylum.
Speaking with Guardian Media yesterday, Hinds echoed what he stated in a Facebook post hours before, where he said: “In circumstances where our criminals, their supporters and their supported as well as certain categories of persons have targeted the UK to flee our country, in some cases to avoid accountability to the law and to you.”
Hinds said this led to increased numbers of such individuals seeking asylum in the UK.
But he went further yesterday, describing the development as “unfortunate” but admitted that the reasoning put forward for the visa restrictions was “not new” to Government.
He added that Government was aware of some citizens fleeing T&T. He said that while crime was a challenge, international partnerships would continue even with the visa stipulation.
“The work of the law enforcement platform in T&T is well underway and it’s expected to continue because we do face a crime problem in the country and like many other countries of the world we have to continue to work, so notwithstanding what any other State does... and we collaborate with other States.”
Hinds added the British government was within its right to introduce such a policy if they saw fit.
He was also hopeful that further collaboration between the British and T&T would lead to a reduction in the number of people making asylum requests.
However, ACP Crime and Special Operations Richard Smith said criminals, who already fled T&T and have continued their criminal enterprises from abroad, are still within reach of the TTPS and could be brought back to face charges. Smith said local police would continue to fulfil their duties by pursuing criminals even across borders with the necessary support from international counterparts.
“Even though they feel they can run and hide from the authorities here... even if we have outstanding warrants for them, if they are wanted for criminal offences here, we can make the necessary arrangements and have them here.
“Once they come into custody across there they might find them in a road exercise, by some means they would come into the custody of the British authorities and once they communicate with us, we can get them back here and deal with them according to law.”
Smith said he could not confirm whether or not British authorities requested information from local police as part of their deliberations in this recent decision, or if the information was put forward from their own intelligence agencies.
But one police officer, in an investigative unit who asked not to be named, said while it was possible to have criminals and gang leaders brought back to T&T, gathering the evidence to facilitate such would require significant investigations.
Asked how suspected gangsters may have been able to leave the country in the first place, the officer explained that once someone was not charged with a crime, they were free to leave and enter another country, at the discretion of that country’s government.
Despite this, the officer maintained that police closely monitored the movement of people in and out of T&T using a travel index available from the Immigration Division.
The travel index, he said was a computer database which records the entry and exit of citizens out of T&T.
Meanwhile, criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad said intelligence collaborations between both countries’ law enforcement agencies would continue throughout the visa restriction.
“Tightening up UK borders is something that will help to stem that flow of drugs and tightening up the UK borders is something that will help to stem that flow of drugs.
Hinds, Gary in public spat
The fallout from the UK’s new visa policy has escalated into a public spat between Hinds and National Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader Gary Griffith.
The NTA leader in a statement Wednesday said a similar situation was averted in 2014 when he was national security minister.
During the NTA’s meeting in Mt Lambert later that day, he doubled down on the claims, saying he did everything UK officials asked to ensure visa free travel remained for locals then.
In a Facebook post, former High Commissioner to the UK Garvin Nicholas supported Griffith’s claims: “To be clear, 2010 to 2015 not only did we preserve the visa free access to the UK, we extended it to all of the Schengen Europe.”
Hinds, however, dismissed Griffith’s claims as “pure fictitious imagination.” In a scathing Facebook post on Wednesday evening, he referred to Griffith as “Garrulous G-String” and denied that any such security threat or discussion took place in 2014.
Responding to Hinds’ remarks yesterday, Griffith labelled him “not only the most incompetent minister ever but also a blatant liar.”