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Candy Jageshar Vasquez, the mother of missing Trinidadian man Thomas Vasquez says she will not be deterred by the statements Prime Minister Gaston Browne made about search efforts to locate her son in Antigua.
Thomas has been missing since April 15, a day after returning to the island from his native Trinidad.
Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister for Trinidad and Tobago Sean Sobers had indicated that he would reach out to officials in Antigua and Barbuda for a status update on the investigation into Thomas’ disappearance.
PM Browne took to his Facebook page saying that Sobers has no moral authority to condemn Antigua and Barbuda since over 500 individuals go missing in Trinidad & Tobago annually and there are hundreds unaccounted for. He advised Sobers to focus on the exponential increase in crime in Trinidad and Tobago.
Browne expressed the hope that Thomas is found safe but said there is no evidence that he went missing in Antigua.
In his post, Browne accused Thomas of having a “history of entering the country by plane” and leaving secretly by boat, while allegedly peddling marijuana from an illegal farm on which he worked in Glanvilles.
This statement does not sit well with the young man’s mother.
“Mr Prime Minister Gaston Brown, your message this morning upset me a lot, but that is not going to deter me from continuing the search for my son Thomas. The Honourable Sean Sobers, our new Minister of Caricom Affairs, has reached out to your country seeking information on a missing person who is Trinidadian, but who is missing in your country of Antigua and Barbuda, and you are so oblivious to the fact that he is a foreigner in your land.
“Is that how you treat foreigners? Is that all you care about is the money that they have to spend? And where is your info that he was peddling drugs? Or is it that for that reason that you just don’t care? Or if he’s on a boat he returns back to Antigua? I don’t need your sympathy. I need you to authorize the department or departments in charge of finding my son to do so. I always stand on the truth without fear of consequences,” Vasquez said.
Thomas’ mother and several individuals along with help from the Concerned Citizens group have mounted searches for him but so far without suceess.
Meanwhile, PM Browne is accusing opposition elements of colluding with “a foreigner” to condemn the country, calling them deracinated.
He was apparently referring to a local activist who provided a news entity out of Trinidad with information about the police and the investigation.
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