Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is coun­ter­ing ac­cu­sa­tions that he over­stat­ed the role of To­ba­go’s new radar sys­tem, say­ing his re­marks were tak­en out of con­text by “so-called ex­perts.”

On Tues­day, when asked whether the radar could help lo­cate cou­ple Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu, who were kid­napped from their Monos Is­land home on Sat­ur­day, Alexan­der said, “Def­i­nite­ly! That’s why the ru­mours are spread­ing and that is why we had very lit­tle to say at the time. Ru­mours were just spread­ing... What we con­tin­ue to see? Not the same thing hap­pen­ing every day? Boats com­ing in, we don’t know. And all of these things. This is what we are try­ing to strate­gi­cal­ly or­gan­ise. Tech­nol­o­gy at its best in or­der to pre­vent these things from hap­pen­ing.”

Gary Grif­fith, a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er, called the claim “ir­re­spon­si­ble” and in­di­cat­ed that tech­nol­o­gy was al­ready avail­able but were not be­ing used.