Police officers assigned to the Immigration Division’s have joined the hunt for “fugitive” Africans Musah Ibrahim and Time Kings, and are expected to make a break in the case within the next 24 hours. Intelligence sources told the T&T Guardian yesterday the investigating team, which comprised police, immigration and National Operations Centre (NOC) personnel, had received vital information.
“Intelligence is developing on the search. We think within the next 24 hours we will have a break in the investigation,” one investigator said. NOC executive director Commander Garvin Heerah said yesterday the chief immigration officer had advised that anyone harbouring or protecting the men could be found liable under the law of aiding and abetting them. “But this will be determined by the Immigration Division,” Heerah said.
He added that anyone having information on Ibrahim’s and Kings’ whereabouts was asked to call E-999 or Crime Stoppers and pass on the information “which will be treated with the strictest of confidentiality.” Chief immigration Officer Gerry Downes said yesterday Ibrahim and Kings have not been found. However he declined to say anything further on the investigation.
Ibrahim and Kings went missing last Friday, after they failed to report to the Immigration Division for deportation. On Sunday, 11 African nationals were deported to their home countries of Nigeria and Ghana after they failed in a legal bid to stop their deportation. The Government chartered a Caribbean Airlines Ltd flight to Ghana at a cost of $2.6 million to take the deportees home.
High Court Judge Vasheist Kokaram ordered that Ibrahim be released because the State could not give a definite time-frame for his deportation. One of the conditions of his release was that he report to immigration authorities several times a week. He had been locked up at the Immigration Detention Centre, in Arima, for 19 months.
Kambon: They are afraid
Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) head Khafra Kambon expressed disapproval of Immigration’s treatment of Ibrahim and Kings as criminals. Kambon, who had been in contact with the men’s wives, said the men had not turned themselves in and while he did not condone their actions, he was not surprised they were afraid to do so.
“I think it is so unfortunate that people in unfortunate circumstances to begin with would now be criminalised, because they are now seeing themselves as a criminal and as fugitives of justice. It is a very unfortunate use of language to term them,” he said. Kambon said the men were required to report to Immigration last Friday and because of medical challenges they could not make it. He said the men’s wives took in medical certificates on their behalf, but immigration officers refused to accept them.
He said the men had been told if they turned up they would be arrested and deported and not allowed back in T&T. “These guys do not want to live that way, I am sure. I am sure if they are told they can come in a normal way, they will. They do not have to hide. It makes no sense. It does not benefit their family.
“Once they do not feel physically threatened—and they have every right to feel physically threatened—I cannot say the guys are not going to do it. I do not know why they create this sense of threat,” Kambon added.