PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
A RECENTLY released bombing suspect in Trinidad and Tobago has denied that he was the mastermind behind the series of explosions that rocked the capital over the past few months.
Lenville Small, 68, the younger brother of Lance Small, who is serving a jail sentence in the United States for gun running, was released from custody on Thursday, 13 days after he was held as a suspect.
Prior to Small's arrest, Prime Minister Patrick Manning had told Parliament that the police had identified a mysterious 'Mr. Big' as being behind the bombings and other criminal activities in the country.
On November 18, heavily armed police officers with sniffer dogs searched Small's home for bomb-making chemicals. While they found no explosives, the officers discovered a document with the photographs of five people who were involved in his brother's extradition, with various money figures written next to each photograph. He was held under the Anti-Terrorism Act until his release.
Small told a local newspaper that he was not 'Mr. Big' and that he believed the police suspected him as being the Port-of-Spain bomber because of his close relationship with his older brother, who was once second in command of the rebel Muslim group, the Jamaat al Muslimeen.
He denied any affiliation with the Jamaat al Muslimeen, but admitted cutting off the photographs of Attorney-General John Jeremie, Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls, attorneys Douglas Mendes and Dana Seetahal, and David West, director of the Central Authority Unit, from newspapers and placing the dollar amounts next to each photograph.
PRICE TAG ON HEAD
Police initially believed that the document was created for distribution in the underworld and that the sums of money represented price tags for the heads of those listed.
However, Small said the totals represented the fees the various persons made from conducting the case against his brother, and not a hit list.
"I was not angry about my brother's extradition. I was the man who was instrumental in convincing him to go to the U.S. From Day One I told him that it was going to be very expensive to challenge the extradition. I was at the prison the day they were taking him away. I was happy they were taking him away," he told the newspaper.
