Plans underway to deport Venezuelan

POLICE sources yesterday said that plans are underway to deport a Venezuelan national back to his country to face criminal charges of fleeing from prosecution and also to face sentencing for murder.

While not wanting to divulge too much information, police sources confirmed that the 52-year-old man who was arrested in a Malabar house on Thursday night, was given a sentence on a charge of murder in his homeland of Tucupita, Venezuela two years ago. However, the Venezuelan judicial authorities granted the man leave to bid his family a final farewell. He however left the country in a boat and arrived in Trinidad where he was been living illegally for the past two years.

Police sources said that while local laws prohibit a prisoner to be imprisoned for more than 48 hours without a charge being laid, since the Venezuelan is in this country illegally, he could be incarcerated until legal procedures are concluded to have him de-ported. Northern Division Task Force officers arrested the man around 10 pm on Thursday after receiving certain information. The officers stormed a house at Casablanca Crescent, Phase One, Malabar where they held him. Up to late yesterday he remained in police custody at the Malabar police station. Local police are continuing to liaise with their Venezuelan counterparts via Interpol and also with the Venezuelan Embassy.