TACKLING KIDNAPPING

Legislation being considered by Government to freeze the financial assets of the families of persons who have been kidnapped, in a bid to prevent the paying of ransom money to kidnappers, is nothing more than an infringement of the citizen’s rights. Whoever thought up this idea no doubt imagines that it would make any negotiating with the kidnappers illegal. But the fact must be faced that if families of victims wait for the police to capture the kidnappers they may well wait in vain, and in the end find only the dead body of the victim. The intention may be good but it is only those families who have known the horror of the kidnapping of a loved one who could say with all honesty that money is meaningless to them when the life of a victim is at stake.

We understand that something has to be done to eliminate the scourge of kidnapping. But it cannot begin in the concept of the freezing of the assets of families of kidnap victims. That is taking the easy way out, and just because the assets of a wealthy family have been frozen is no guarantee that money could not be obtained from some other source by anxious relatives. The kidnappers know this and will not be deterred by the plan that is proposed. We are totally against paying criminals ransom money. But to suggest that charges can be laid against someone who does, is making that person pay twice — once for the trauma and suffering of having a relative snatched away and secondly for possibly paying one’s life’s saving to secure his release. Such money is hardly spent in Trinidad.

What the Government of Trinidad and Tobago should do is seek to persuade other Member States of the Caribbean Community of Nations (CARICOM) to introduce laws which would allow for CARICOM countries to make it possible for inspection of the accounts of their offshore banks, if deposits of ransom money, for example, are suspected. The emphasis here will be on tracing the ransom money, where this is possible. Any such agreement should be allowed to be applied retroactively, and clearly will be without the trauma which will be associated with the proposed legislation and its key clauses to combat kidnapping — freezing of financial assets of families of kidnap victims and prevention of negotiations with kidnappers.