PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Trinidad has asked Britain and the United States for help in fighting a surging crime wave blamed on the illegal drug trade and an influx of criminal deportees, the prime minister said.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning told Parliament during his annual budget presentation Wednesday that the twin-island republic has asked the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to reorganise the 7,200-member police force, while Britain's Scotland Yard has been asked to provide equipment and expertise to local police.Manning didn't say if he had received a response to the requests.
The appeal for help comes as the twin-island nation struggles with its worst crime wave on record. There have been 285 homicides in the country since January 1, compared to 260 over the same period in 2004, police say.
Police have reported 50 kidnappings for ransom this year, about double the number reported last year.
On Friday, the beheaded body of the health minister's nephew was found on a fruit plantation, two days after kidnappers stabbed and seized him in the capital, Port of Spain.
Among the other kidnappings was that earlier this month of Jason Raymond-Guillen, son of a newspaper editor. His kidnappers demanded a ransom of TT$2 million, which the police's anti-kidnapping squad said was the highest ever in the twin-island republic.
Raymond-Guillen was forced from his vehicle outside his home in West Trinidad.
Manning blamed the increase in crime on drug trafficking, which he said has "created a criminal elite with considerable financial resources with which they corrupt public institutions and officials".
Trinidad is a key transit point for South American cocaine destined for the United States and Europe. The country is about 10 miles (16 kilometres) off the coast of Venezuela, which shares a porous border with Colombia.
Manning said an influx in criminal deportees from the US, Canada and Britain had added to the crime problem. About 40 criminal deportees entered the country from the United States this week, authorities say.
Manning said deportees bring "sophistication and expertise of the most advanced international criminal networks".
There have also been three bomb explosions in Trinidad since July, the latest one outside a KFC restaurant in Port-of-Spain on September 10. No one was hurt in that blast.
However, 14 people were injured on July 11, when a bomb exploded in a trash bin on a busy Port of Spain street. A woman lost a leg in that bombing.
A bomb also exploded in a pile of trash bags in the Trinidadian capital on August 10. There were no injuries in that blast.
