Dillon: 130 Trinis in terrorism overseas

Responding to questions from Independent Senator Paul Richards on TT nationals leaving for other countries to engage in terrorist activities, during yesterday’s sitting of the Senate, Dillon said, “In terms of intelligence and information gathering, people would leave (TT) sometimes on a destination not mentioned.” For example, he said, they would leave TT for England and end up in Syria. “So their intended destination is not known to us. Therefore, we rely on international partners to give us the kind of information and intelligence that they (Trinis) are in a terrorist country,” he said.

Asked whether the statement by US terrorism expert Malcolm Nance, aired on American cable station MSNBC that Trinidad has more terrorists than seven countries temporarily banned from entering by US President Donald Trump, Dillon said he was unable to speak on the correctness of Nance’s statement, “for the mere reason that we do not have information on the seven countries he has compared (TT) with.” Nevertheless, he said, Government works close with international partners especially the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom in strategic areas such as intelligence and information sharing concerning nationals found to be associated with any terrorist group whether locally or internationally.