Posted on 07/27/2003 10:25:13 PM PDT by Pikamax
‘Terror threat’ story no hoax, says cop
By Darryl Heeralal
AFTER six months of investigations, police say they have found no evidence to suggest that the terror threat story reported by the Sunday Express in January was a hoax or was planted by this newspaper, as suggested by the Minister of National Security Howard Chin Lee.
This according to Supt Errol Denoon of the Port of Spain CID, who was appointed by then-commissioner Hilton Guy to investigate claims by an Islamic group that they intended to attack US and British interests in Trinidad and Tobago with chemical and biological weapons.
In response to a question, Denoon said there is no evidence to say the story was a hoax or it was planted .
The Police Special Branch was also appointed to probe the matter, but this newspaper understands that part of the enquiry was to investigate the Sunday Express team that reported the story.
The Special Branch investigation, according to reports, has been on hold for a couple of months.
In a nation-wide address on January 28, two days after the story was published, Chin Lee claimed the story was totally incorrect , that it could be refuted, and the truth can be told about them .
Since that address Chin Lee has not brought forward any evidence to prove the story to be wrong.
In a post-Cabinet news conference two days after Chin Lee’s address, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the Government has committed significant resources into the investigation of the matter .
Denoon said they were still putting together information and that the investigation was not completed.
He said they were investigating every piece of information and admitted that police have not been able to find the lab where the Sunday Express team was taken.
Denoon could not set a time frame for the completion of the investigation.
The Sunday Express team was taken to a secret location, described as a lab, by the group and shown several organic and inorganic chemical compounds which it claimed were being used to make chemical and biological weapons to use against US and British interests , if provoked.
In early February, Special Branch officers interviewed chemist Veji Boodoo, who told them his laboratory at Cuchawan Trace, Debe, could be the same lab that the Sunday Express had visited.
Boodoo, the director of a company called Petro Lab Ltd, in a recorded statement to police, said almost two and a half years ago he was approached by an Islamic group who asked for information on how to combine certain compounds to make chemical and biological weapons and explosives.
Boodoo told police the group approached him several times after the first meeting asking for his help and expertise.
He told police he did not co-operate.
Boodoo is a chemist and said he had received training from US and British experts who came to Trinidad and conducted seminars and workshops.
Boodoo told police at least six of his employees had keys to his Debe lab, and that anyone one of them could have given access for its use to the Muslim group.
He told police that two weeks before the terror threat story was published, the group, with whom he had spoken several times before, approached him again, this time enquiring about how certain chemicals could be used to make deadly weapons.
Investigators were told that the chemicals the group had asked Boodoo about were similar to those shown to the Sunday Express.
The Express also understands that another Islamic group approached Boodoo following the conviction of Dole Chadee for help with plans to take out a former State official.
That plan never materialised.
A man who was in the lab and dressed in surgical gloves and a gas mask made it clear that the compounds shown were not explosive or toxic in nature by themselves, but that they were being combined with other chemicals to make them deadly and dangerous.
The man said he was a chemical engineer who was trained in the US in explosives.
The group said they made part of their plans public because, according to them, it would be unIslamic to attack without warning .
The trip to the lab was part of a continuing investigation by the Sunday Express, which started last November into reports by US and British intelligence agencies that a radical Mulsim group was planning to launch an attack on foreign interests in this country.
The FBI compiled a dossier on a man identified as Umar Abdullah, head of Waajihatul Islaamiyyah (The Islamic Front) and intercepted a cellular phone call in area 36, Cunupia, in which a man spoke of plans to attack US businesses.
The British High Commission, according to an intelligence report, had received a telephone call informing of plans to attack British interests.
Several chemical compounds resembling the compounds in the lab were found strewn outside Boodoo’s lab days after the terror threat story was published.
Forensic officers took samples of the material and later reported thay were not dangerous.
However, the forensic officers admitted to police that the materials found could be combined with other compounds to make them dangerous and that explosives could be made with chemicals bought from a supermarket or pharmacy.
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