Terror suspect transferred to
immigration for deportation
PHILIPSBURG--The Guyanese national who was detained earlier this week on suspicion of being a terrorist sympathizer has been handed over to local immigration officials on St. Maarten for repatriation.
Chief Public Prosecutor Taco Stein said Sunday detectives probing the allegations that the suspect, whose identity has been withheld, was a terrorist sympathizer, had been concluded after an extensive search of computers confiscated at the latter’s Cay Hill residence and that there was no evidence to substantiate the claim.
Members of the Kingdom Detective Cooperation Team RST recently arrested the man as a terrorist suspect, which instantly propelled the island on the forefront of daily releases by major news agencies.
When the suspect was arrested, authorities said they had found three different passports and had confiscated some computers from his house. They did confirm that it was based on suspicion, but denied that the arrest had been in any way linked to the recent US terrorism incident in New York.
In that New York incident early in June, two Guyanese, one Guyana-born US citizen and one Trinidadian had been arrested, one in the USA and three in Trinidad and Tobago, for allegedly plotting to blow up a fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in New York. While US authorities had indicated that there were several other persons of interest, Stein said the suspect detained here had not been, to the best of his knowledge, linked to that incident.
No information is available about what act of terror the suspect is believed to have been linked to.
He will now be deported for residing illegally on the island.
