By Lara Pickford-Gordon and Clint Chan Tack Wednesday, April 22 2009

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Summit soldiers: Soldiers from Suriname assemble for an appreciation ceremony at the Old Police Headquarters, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain yesterda...

The son of Venezuela’s former minister of defence was detained by police in Trinidad on Sunday.

The incident was carried online by El Universal which stated that Raul Emilio Baduel, the son of General Raul Isaias Baduel, arrived in Trinidad on Sunday and met with a group of young students living here.

According to the attorney for the Baduel family, Omar Mora Tosta, in an interview with private TV channel Globovision, “(Baduel) had not spent half hour there when police broke in and he was detained together with the people who were there.”

The attorney said the local police heard about Baduel through an advisory from Venezuela’s intelligence services which warned that two Venezuelan terrorists had arrived in Trinidad to disrupt the Fifth Summit of the Americas. President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, along with 32 hemispheric leaders, including US President Barack Obama, attended the summit in Port-of-Spain last weekend.

Tosta said Baduel visited Trinidad following an invitation from international media to “denounce human rights abuses and attacks on his father.”

Baduel was released on Monday after the summit ended and was expected to leave Trinidad for Venezuela.

The Venezuelan Embassy confirmed Baduel was detained. An official directed to speak to Newsday said the embassy had not received an official report from the authorities of Trinidad. “Yes, he was detained but we don’t know the reasons why,” the official said yesterday.

Acting Commissioner of Police James Philbert yesterday confirmed Baduel was detained because of information they had received about him, but did not say what was the information.

“It was on Saturday evening he came to Trinidad and was cleared at Cedros and came to Port- of-Spain. We made investigations about it and we took him up for questioning to find out why he was here. He was subsequently interviewed and released.

He was released from custody because he came here legally,” Philbert said. He could not say if Baduel had returned to Venezuela.

The Miami Herald, in an April 3 report stated Baduel’s father, General Raul Isaias Baduel, a political adversary of Chavez, was arrested at gunpoint on April by military intelligence agents.

The general’s arrest was connected to embezzlement charges during 2006-2007 tenure as defense minister, the Herald reported.