The Attorney General of El Salvador, Luis Antonio Martinez Gonzalez, yesterday echoed the sentiments of this country’s AG when he warned that although crime does not recognise borders, justice did and would be administered wherever in the world the perpetrators were held. Gonzalez, who is the chairman of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), made the statement as he sat with Garvin Nicholas at a pre-arranged press conference held at the launch of the two-day plenary session at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.
CFATF consists of 27 members, including Caribbean territories and a handful of Spanish-speaking states, who have agreed to implement common counter-measures to combat money laundering and anti-terrorism financing. Nicholas currently holds the post of vice-chairman of CFATF. He is expected to assume chairmanship in November.
Listening intently to the questions posed to Nicholas by local reporters in the aftermath of the public announcement of the indictment of former Fifa official and leader of the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) Jack Warner, Gonzalez said:
“You have seen that the arm of the law is long. Crime does not recognise any borders and today, justice is recognising borders. Countries are committed to pursuing criminals in any country of the world where they might be.” Warner, a former Fifa special adviser, is among several powerful figures in the global football organization facing charges over widespread corruption throughout the past two decades.
Claiming that institutions were readying themselves to fight organised crime, Gonzalez said through the CFATF secretariat those agencies were working to form an alliance which represented a new world order working to reduce national, regional and international threats. Seeking to ensure T&T’s compliance with regulations tackling money laundering and terrorist financing regime, Nicholas revealed that Government was working on amendments to the anti-terrorism legislation.
Deeply concerned about locals traveling abroad to become involved in terrorist activities, he said: “We have been tracking those individuals and we know who they are and we continue to monitor their activities.” On the issue of financing such activities, Nicholas assured: “We have in place the facility to list terrorists or suspected terrorists and to freeze their assets.”
Adding that development had only taken place after he assumed the portfolio of AG four months ago, Nicholas continued:
“We are actually in the process of identifying and gathering the requisite evidence to take some of those matters to court so that we can actually list those persons as terrorists.” Pressed to provide an estimate of the number of people who were on the law enforcement radar, Nicholas responded:
“I can’t say how many people are currently being investigated as we are still gathering evidence and awaiting certain documents from foreign authorities.”
Referring to the CFATF session, Nicholas said T&T was not immune to the global escalation of expanding national and transnational crime.