Ques­tions are be­ing raised about an ex­emp­tion grant­ed for the daugh­ter of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi to re-en­ter the coun­try af­ter trav­el­ling to Madrid, the Unit­ed King­dom and Bar­ba­dos dur­ing the last six weeks.

AG Al-Rawi is deny­ing any spe­cial favours were grant­ed to his daugh­ter, but a time­line of events as un­rav­elled by well-placed sources and doc­u­ments shared with Guardian Me­dia re­vealed oth­er­wise.

Al-Rawi is stout­ly deny­ing any sug­ges­tions that his 19-year-old daugh­ter, Ji­nan Alexa Al-Rawi was grant­ed a 'spe­cial' ex­emp­tion to re­turn home af­ter study­ing abroad. He al­so de­nounced claims by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sources that his daugh­ter did not go in­to state quar­an­tine af­ter leav­ing the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port last week­end.

Al-Rawi's daugh­ter touched down on a pri­vate jet in Trinidad on June 5 from Bar­ba­dos. Af­ter wrap­ping up her se­mes­ter at a uni­ver­si­ty in Spain, she made her way to Lon­don and then to Bar­ba­dos be­fore fi­nal­ly get­ting home.

The ex­emp­tion comes at a time when thou­sands of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als have ap­plied to re­turn home and they are still in a long queue, some strug­gling to live and forced to find al­ter­na­tive means of sur­vival aboard.

Doc­u­ments ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in a let­ter dat­ed June 4, 2021, grant­ed Ji­nan Alexa Al-Rawi per­mis­sion to en­ter the coun­try on June 5.

The let­ter was per­son­al­ly signed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

"Such en­try is au­tho­rised for June 5, 2021, in ac­cor­dance with the at­tached client trav­el itin­er­ary," Hinds' let­ter stat­ed.

Some ex­emp­tions are al­so signed by the min­istry's act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and copied to the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer and gen­er­al man­agers of the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty.

The AG, de­fend­ing his daugh­ter dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, said, "What I can tell you, my daugh­ter ap­plied in a reg­u­lar way that every­body else did. She re­ceived her per­mis­sions in the reg­u­lar way every­one else did. She was prop­er­ly test­ed. In fact, she had two neg­a­tive PCR tests. She is a re­turn­ing stu­dent like many hun­dreds of them. She is cer­tain­ly not on va­ca­tion. There are hun­dreds of stu­dents in her sit­u­a­tion and we help all of them."

A source at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry ex­plained that all ex­emp­tions let­ters are emailed to the Im­mi­gra­tion of­fice at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port be­fore the ar­rival of pas­sen­gers.

"When any air­craft ar­rives they (im­mi­gra­tion) have copies of all ex­emp­tions for per­sons on that flight. In this case, they had no ex­emp­tion on file for Miss Al-Rawi and none was emailed to im­mi­gra­tion," the source said.

"An air­line agent pre­sent­ed a copy of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter's let­ter, but Miss Al-Rawi did not have a hard copy in her pos­ses­sion al­though it was ad­dressed to her."

The na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty source said a pi­lot hand­ed im­mi­gra­tion a copy of the ex­emp­tion let­ter which they pe­rused and then per­mit­ted Miss Al-Rawi to pro­ceed af­ter the rel­e­vant pro­ce­dures.

An­oth­er source fa­mil­iar with Miss Al-Rawi's case said that Port Health at the air­port would nor­mal­ly make arrange­ments to have pas­sen­gers quar­an­tined if none was made be­fore.

"But in this case, no such quar­an­tine arrange­ments were made for her (Ji­nan)," re­vealed a source fa­mil­iar with the case.

Did the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's daugh­ter quar­an­tine con­trary to what high­ly placed sources at the min­istry re­vealed?

The AG in­sist­ed that his daugh­ter was quar­an­tined and giv­en no pref­er­en­tial treat­ment in the grant­i­ng of the ex­emp­tion since she had ap­plied months ago to re­turn home.

Ques­tioned if Ji­nan was placed in state quar­an­tine or state-su­per­vised quar­an­tine af­ter leav­ing the air­port, Al-Rawi replied "I can con­firm that she went in­to quar­an­tine...state quar­an­tine."

Al-Rawi opt­ed not to dis­close where his daugh­ter has been quar­an­tined.

He as­sured Ji­nan met all the re­quire­ments to re-en­ter the coun­try.

"Every­thing was ticked."

But the AG re­fused to pro­vide any writ­ten proof or doc­u­ments to in­di­cate that his daugh­ter had been state quar­an­tined de­spite be­ing pressed by Guardian Me­dia.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Act has the au­thor­i­ty to quar­an­tine peo­ple re­turn­ing to the coun­try. Ques­tions were sent to Dr Paras­ram con­cern­ing the AG's daugh­ter to in­quire if she has been state quar­an­tined up­on her re­turn to the coun­try as is cus­tom­ary un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Act, but Dr Parasam failed to re­spond to the ques­tions sent to him re­peat­ed­ly over sev­er­al days last week.

Trav­el doc­u­ments leaked to Guardian Me­dia showed that Ji­nan board­ed flight B1900 at the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Bar­ba­dos to re­turn home.

She trav­elled on air­line QCAS (Qual­i­ty Cor­po­rate Air­craft Ser­vices) Aero.

A copy of Ji­nan's im­mi­gra­tion/cus­toms form re­vealed she vis­it­ed Madrid, Unit­ed King­dom and Bar­ba­dos dur­ing the last six weeks.

Un­der length of stay, the AG's daugh­ter wrote "three months" on the form while she iden­ti­fied her­self as a "stu­dent".

Next month, Ji­nan will cel­e­brate her 20th birth­day.

Re­spond­ing to What­sApp ques­tions by Guardian Me­dia sur­round­ing his daugh­ter's re-en­try in­to the coun­try, the AG wrote (your) "sup­pos­ed­ly re­li­able in­for­ma­tion is clear­ly un­re­li­able."

Stand­ing in de­fence of Ji­nan, Al-Rawi wrote, "my daugh­ter fol­lowed all re­quired process­es and re­ceived all nor­mal per­mis­sions like many oth­er stu­dents abroad who have re­turned home and who the present and past Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have both pub­licly and re­peat­ed­ly stat­ed are be­ing at­tend­ed to.

"I con­firm that my daugh­ter ap­plied months ago. Is a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent in Spain. Had PCR neg­a­tives. Had all per­mis­sions. I sug­gest that you re­turn to your sources to put their mis­chief straight."

Asked if it was safe to say that his daugh­ter re­ceived no spe­cial treat­ment or favouritism in the grant­i­ng of the ex­emp­tion let­ter, bear­ing in mind that scores of T&T cit­i­zens are still stuck out­side of the coun­try since the bor­der clo­sure last March, Al-Rawi did not pro­vide a writ­ten re­sponse for this ques­tion.

In a sub­se­quent tele­phone in­ter­view last Thurs­day, Al-Rawi was ques­tioned if he used his in­flu­ence or pow­ers as AG to fast-track the ex­emp­tion process for his daugh­ter.

The AG said he did not ap­ply for his daugh­ter to come in­to the ju­ris­dic­tion.

"How do you do that, love? Ex­plain that to me?"

Al-Rawi was told that he could have eas­i­ly made a tele­phone call to speed up the process.

"Shal­iza, I have giv­en you my re­sponse in writ­ing. I have told you what I have to say there, re­spect­ful­ly. I have al­so told you that the in­for­ma­tion you were giv­en is wrong. I have put it there...I have told you to be care­ful of the con­tent and the mis­chief."

Re­gard­ing re­ports that im­mi­gra­tion did not have Ji­nan's ex­emp­tion let­ter on file, the AG said he could not ac­count for im­mi­gra­tion and what goes on there.

He in­sist­ed that Ji­nan had her ex­emp­tion let­ter on her when she ar­rived at im­mi­gra­tion, stat­ing that our source was not cred­i­ble.

"I don't know who your sources are...un­til your sources are re­vealed to me, then I could as­sess their cred­i­bil­i­ty. I can't re­al­ly speak to what your sources say or not say," Al-Rawi said.

Ques­tioned if he felt his fam­i­ly was be­ing tar­get­ed, Al-Rawi said as a per­son in pub­lic life "It is part and par­cel of the scruti­ny. So, I make no com­plaints. It is ac­cept­ed when you are in pub­lic life that you are held to a dif­fer­ent stan­dard."

The AG said all he asks is to be treat­ed fair­ly.

"This is a democ­ra­cy. But clear­ly, there is mis­chief afoot."

This in­ci­dent comes sev­en months af­ter the AG's son Abra­ham Al-Rawi was grant­ed an ex­emp­tion and re-en­tered the coun­try.

Last De­cem­ber, Al-Rawi was forced to fight off claims in a T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle that he used his po­si­tion to help his son jump the long ex­emp­tion line, af­ter doc­u­ments of Abra­ham's re­turn to this coun­try sur­faced.

Al-Rawi had con­firmed that his son, a stu­dent, came in­to the coun­try last No­vem­ber but when asked if he was grant­ed any spe­cial favours, Al-Rawi said he con­sid­ered the mat­ter to be re­pul­sive and urged peo­ple to stop.

No re­sponse from Hinds, Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer

On Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia sent two What­sApp mes­sages to Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews query­ing if she had re­ceived re­ports that Ji­nan's ex­emp­tion let­ter was not in the im­mi­gra­tion's sys­tem. But Gand­hi-An­drews did not re­spond.

Nu­mer­ous calls to Gand­hi-An­drews' cell­phone al­so went unan­swered.

Guardian Me­dia al­so for­ward­ed two What­sApp mes­sages to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds ask­ing when Al-Rawi had ap­plied for the ex­emp­tion and what is the wait­ing pe­ri­od for a re­turn­ing stu­dent to get an ex­emp­tion.

The mes­sages showed it was sent but not de­liv­ered.

Ex­emp­tion in­con­sis­ten­cies

Mean­while, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty source al­so drew ref­er­ence to ex­emp­tion in­con­sis­ten­cies that im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers have been pick­ing up.

Doc­u­ments leaked to Guardian Me­dia showed an April 30 ex­emp­tion let­ter grant­ed to two Trinida­di­ans to leave the coun­try did not have an of­fi­cial na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty let­ter­head.

The na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty source said this was rather strange and the first they had seen.

The source said this was not in keep­ing with the for­mat of ex­emp­tions reach­ing im­mi­gra­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, an­oth­er ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty which they dis­cov­ered was a Cus­toms and Ex­cise's crew man­i­fest which list­ed three Amer­i­can pi­lots en­ter­ing T&T on May 4, 2021, us­ing a pri­vate jet op­er­at­ed by a Flori­da-based com­pa­ny.

The jet was giv­en clear­ance to en­ter T&T on May 4 and de­part on the same day to Mi­a­mi with sev­en pas­sen­gers–five lo­cals and two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens.

How­ev­er, an ex­emp­tion let­ter dat­ed May 4 sent to the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty which grant­ed five of the sev­en pas­sen­gers ex­emp­tions con­tained three T&T pi­lots as the jet's flight crew and not the three Amer­i­can pi­lots as list­ed in the orig­i­nal crew man­i­fest.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the five pas­sen­gers who were giv­en per­mis­sion to leave the coun­try via the orig­i­nal ex­emp­tion let­ter were an af­flu­ent busi­ness­man, his broth­er and moth­er, the daugh­ter of an­oth­er well-known busi­ness­man and a man sus­pect­ed of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties said to be on the po­lice radar.

The oth­er two pas­sen­gers, the source said, were not on the of­fi­cial ex­emp­tion let­ter, but their names ap­pear in a flim­sy email pur­port­ed­ly sent by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties and they were al­so not in the im­mi­gra­tion's sys­tem. Sources said it has nev­er been the prac­tice to re­ceive ex­emp­tion re­quest ca­su­al­ly via an email from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with­out the min­istry's let­ter­head at­tached.

The for­eign jet pi­lots, sources said, are now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for al­low­ing two peo­ple whom they be­lieve were not grant­ed the prop­er ex­emp­tions be­fore leav­ing Trinidad to en­ter the US.

A June 9 What­sApp mes­sage sent to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on the is­sues was read but he did not re­spond.

The same mes­sage was re­sent on June 10 to Hinds but it was not read.

Hinds was asked if it was nor­mal to grant ex­emp­tions in a ca­su­al email with­out the min­istry's let­ter­head. Again, there was no an­swer.

Gand­hi-An­drews al­so re­ceived three What­sApp mes­sages but did not re­spond. She al­so failed to an­swer calls to her cell­phone.

The ex­emp­tion process

In Jan­u­ary, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­tro­duced an on­line sys­tem for ex­emp­tion re­quests. Those wish­ing to en­ter the coun­try while the cur­rent bor­der re­stric­tions re­main in place must ap­ply on­line. Each form, con­sid­ered to be a statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion has a unique iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber that can be used to track the progress of ap­pli­cants. Last year peo­ple wish­ing to en­ter the coun­try were re­quired to write a let­ter to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry ask­ing for an ex­emp­tion.

Peo­ple re­turn­ing from high/medi­um-risk coun­tries:

* Will be state quar­an­tined for 7 days up­on ar­rival in T&T.

*Will be swabbed with­in 24 hours of ar­rival.

*Once the per­son does not test pos­i­tive and does not present symp­toms of COVID-19 with­in the sev­en day pe­ri­od he/she will be re­quired to agree (via sign­ing a form) that he/she will home quar­an­tine for the next sev­en days. Pri­or to be­ing al­lowed to home quar­an­tine he/she will be swabbed again,

What the law says

Last April, Gov­ern­ment up­dat­ed the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance to pro­vide clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the pow­ers of the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) to quar­an­tine peo­ple who are like­ly to be in­fect­ed with COVID-19 or have been test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus. The new reg­u­la­tion un­der Sec­tion 105-1 (a) and (b) al­lows the Health Min­is­ter via the CMO to re­strain, seg­re­gate and iso­late such peo­ple who are like­ly to be in­fect­ed with COVID-19 or have test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus. It al­so seeks to pro­vide clar­i­ty as it re­lates to the quar­an­tine pow­ers of the au­thor­i­ties. The Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Sec­tion 105 has a pre­cise sec­tion of law that al­lows for quar­an­tine. This law al­so runs along­side the Quar­an­tine Act. In­di­vid­u­als who fail to com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions face a fine of $50,000 or six months im­pris­on­ment.

The AG's mis­steps

*Ear­li­er this month, Al-Rawi promised the "moth­er of all Car­ni­vals" next year dur­ing a Twit­ter Spaces con­ver­sa­tion with en­ter­tain­ers as the Gov­ern­ment ramps up its vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve to come out of the pan­dem­ic.

Re­spond­ing to Al-Rawi's pub­lic state­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley at last week­end's me­dia brief­ing said it was too ear­ly to dis­cuss Car­ni­val 2022 as the first hur­dle they had to cross was re­open­ing schools in Sep­tem­ber.

*Three months ago, Row­ley al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with Al-Rawi for not wear­ing a face mask dur­ing a live stream event, Vibes with Voicey, stat­ing peo­ple in lead­er­ship po­si­tions must act re­spon­si­bly.

Al-Rawi lat­er apol­o­gised for his ac­tion, ad­mit­ting that he should have act­ed bet­ter.

*In 2016, pho­tographs of Al-Rawi's chil­dren hold­ing high-pow­ered weapons at the shoot­ing range in Camp Cu­mu­to were brought in­to the na­tion­al spot­light by MP for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Al-Rawi sub­se­quent­ly said his fam­i­ly had been in­vit­ed by the army for a "threat as­sess­ment" af­ter he re­ceived death threats af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice in Sep­tem­ber 2015.

Row­ley, how­ev­er, slammed the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) for the sit­u­a­tion say­ing the leaked pho­tos was a breach of se­cu­ri­ty.

In No­vem­ber 2019, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how Al-Rawi's chil­dren were al­lowed to use the gun was al­most at a close. How­ev­er, days lat­er Grif­fith said the probe had hit a bump in the road due to a lack of co­op­er­a­tion from the TTDF.