- 6 hours ago
Senior Multimedia Investigative Journalist and Producer Mark Bassant concludes his exclusive interview with firearms dealer Brent Thomas.
Thomas shares further insight into whether he believes there was political interference in his matter and suggests that an independent body maybe better equipped to look into his matter rather than a Commission of Enquiry that Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has hinted at.
Thomas shares further insight into whether he believes there was political interference in his matter and suggests that an independent body maybe better equipped to look into his matter rather than a Commission of Enquiry that Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has hinted at.
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00:00Tonight, senior multimedia investigative journalist Mark Basant concludes his exclusive interview with firearms dealer Brent Thomas.
00:07Thomas shares further insight into whether he believes there was political interference in his matter
00:13and suggests that an independent body may be better equipped to look into his matter
00:18rather than a commission of inquiry that Prime Minister Cameron Passat-Bissessa has hinted at.
00:32I'm going to ask you a question because you spoke just now in a very general sense of
00:37wondering if it was somebody in the police service, wondering if it was governance
00:42and I must ask you the question, do you think there was some kind of political interference in your matter,
00:50in your case?
00:51That's a hard question to answer.
00:55But I would say that for what took place, especially with the Barbados kidnapping,
01:04there are corridors in the political arena that must be advised on it.
01:15Must be advised on it.
01:18So there are those in the former government that has questions to answer.
01:26That's a hard-hitting question, but there may be.
01:31And also those in the police service as well, yes?
01:33Oh, most definitely. Most definitely.
01:35I want you to know that all the necessary documentation has now been more or less exposed, most of it.
01:44And they can do an assessment, but they would need a neutral party to do this.
01:52You know, the old boys club, you know, like when you say, you are my batch and I'm your batch.
01:56So it may not be able to be done internally.
02:00You may need to have maybe an independent body to do this.
02:04But all the evidence is there.
02:07You will see here in the judgment from the courts, you know, you would see here, you know, where the
02:15judge would rule.
02:17You know, he would say, he said here, you know, all these warrants were invalid.
02:27So from the onset, it was a fiasco.
02:32What would you say to those people who were at that time in the position that took the decisions that
02:39they took?
02:41They need to look at what they did.
02:43Let this be a lesson for Trinidad and Tobago as a people, as a government.
02:51Okay, I went through what I went through.
02:55They destroyed my life, they destroyed my business, they destroyed everything I worked for.
03:00But let's learn from this.
03:01So it never happens to anybody again.
03:04Not one more citizen of Trinidad and Tobago should go through what I went through.
03:08We need to put the checks and balances in place that all the errors that were made by all the
03:14parties involved,
03:15that it never happens to a citizen again.
03:19Interestingly, you raise that question because now, seeing what you had went through over the last three and a half
03:24years,
03:25do you still trust the institutions in this country?
03:29I trust them and I would tell people to trust them.
03:35Serving in the Ministry of National Security, I'll tell you what.
03:3990% of all the people that you see in the police service, in the army, the coast guard, the
03:44prisons,
03:46are wonderful, hardworking, devoted servants of the state.
03:53And you should trust them.
03:55They give their lives to this country.
04:00Let us not see this situation with the people who made very bad decisions as a judgment against entire organizations.
04:11What does justice look like to you now?
04:20Well, I think the first thing is that the mechanism of the state should correct the errors that took place
04:28so that it happens to nobody else.
04:31And there has to be two things.
04:35One, that the persons who made these errors are held accountable.
04:40And that the compensation to the state, to me, allows me to find some way to live my life again.
04:50As I have no ways and means to start a business all over again.
04:55As every time the people that I tried to work with go on the internet, it says I had a
05:01bad circumstance.
05:03And they just don't want no part of it.
05:05Now, I just want to go back to the actual matter here at hand.
05:10And if you can see, when did you first learn about the file that was missing?
05:14And who informed you the file that was in the Ministry of National Security?
05:17At the same time you saw it.
05:18We saw it in the papers.
05:21And when we saw it there, well, you know, everybody, antennas went up like, where's the file?
05:28Where did the file go?
05:29What was in the file?
05:31You know, if we, I guess if the file was available, we would have additional information that would certainly bring
05:41more light to this whole questionable circumstance
05:46that has taken place.
05:48What implications does this missing file have for accountability in your case?
05:53Just what I just said.
05:54If we had the file, it may say how it took place at the upper echelon.
06:04Who wanted to say go, don't go, and with the additional documents we have would bring a lot more clarity.
06:17Do you think that this file may contain communications explaining how your removal from Barbados was authorized?
06:26Of course, yeah.
06:28Yeah, most definitely.
06:31And have you been contacted by anyone from the government or security agencies regarding this matter?
06:36Never anybody from the government.
06:38I've never spoken to anybody from the government.
06:41About a year ago or so, I had two officers come and ask me to give them a statement which
06:46my lawyers gave to them.
06:50You know, just, they needed it for, I don't know, the internal investigation.
06:54But I've never heard anything since.
06:57Yeah.
06:57Now, the Prime Minister has called for a commission, has called, sorry, for a commission of inquiry into this matter.
07:03Into this matter.
07:04Are you calling for an independent investigation or commission of inquiry into the circumstances of your removal from Barbados?
07:11The commission of inquiry would be, that whole thing would be left to the government of the day.
07:21I don't have the expertise to make any decision on such a, you know, such a large matter.
07:30I would say that if there was an inquiry, as I said, all the documents are available.
07:37But I think an independent body would be more suited to reveal where all the errors, you know, that were
07:47made can be brought to light.
07:51And the most important thing about it is that if it's brought to light, other citizens will not have to
08:00go through what I went through.
08:02To destroy someone's life, where there's a very grim future, where you can't start the business again.
08:13The international relationships are very hard to establish.
08:18Every time people Google your name, because I didn't come from this era of Google, but now everybody does that.
08:26Once they have destroyed your character, it's hard to ever build it back.
08:31I had an old friend once called Nappy Myers.
08:34He sang a song called Bring Back the Old Time Days.
08:37Yeah?
08:38And he used to say to me, he used to say, Brent, I could buy a new pants, a new
08:42shirt, and maybe even a new car.
08:44But the one thing I want to remind you, we could never buy a new reputation.
08:50The one most sacred treasure of every human is your reputation.
08:54And these people are so fit to destroy mine.
08:58You know, you can look back now at this entire ordeal and say that you've survived to a certain extent.
09:04I know it has scarred you mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.
09:10But it would be remiss of me not to ask you.
09:12In those moments of being dragged, put into a vehicle, left without food and water for days,
09:20put in a police cell here in Trinidad and Tobago,
09:25what did that do to you as a person, you know?
09:29I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.
09:33The jails in Trinidad are from the 18th century.
09:36God bless the prison officers who work in the most disgusting conditions.
09:47And the authorities knew that everything I did, I did by the book.
09:56To be put in handcuffs and dragged from prison cell to prison cell.
10:01And to be treated with such, I don't know, just horribly.
10:14There's no excuse for it.
10:16And as a person, you would live the rest of your life trying to deal with it mentally.
10:25What message do you have, not just for the government of Trinidad and Tobago,
10:29but for those in Barbados and for the authorities in Barbados?
10:34The message is that, you know the case is finished.
10:43My lawyers and the state has asked for you to reveal simple information.
10:52Why add to the cover-up?
10:56Why add to the cover-up?
10:57Just give the information that has been requested.
11:02So that we can finish the file.
11:06Mr. Thomas, after all that you have gone through over the last three and a half years,
11:10if there's one thing you would want to leave the public with, what would that be?
11:15Criminal activity always was there, but not like now.
11:20Now, let Trinidad and Tobago reflect on how we as a people interact
11:27and nurture one another into making the beautiful nation we call Trinidad and Tobago.
11:34And what happened to me?
11:35They take the lessons from it.
11:38And no other citizen of our country ever suffers what I suffered.
11:46So Thomas, we appreciate your time.
11:49Thank you so much for sharing.
11:52Mark, thank you for coming.
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