THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Government, moved with despatch in issuing an apology to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and to its diplomatic representative Dr Fawaz Abdul Rahman Al Shabili, for the shame and embarrassment he suffered as a result of a search by high level members of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.

Reacting to the official ’profound apology’, the head of Trinidad Muslim League, Azid Ali, accepted it on behalf of the country’s Muslim community, saying he hoped an incident such as this would never happen again.

Indeed, it should not. The Government’s move to offer the apology presumably as soon as it was in a position to do so, is commendable, given the offensiveness of the incident and the potential it possessed for rupturing relations between our two countries. This is quite apart from the hurt and humiliation it would also have caused not only members of the local Islamic community, but all other decent minded citizens of this country.

Noteworthy as part of the languaging of her ministry’s quick response, Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee Scoon pointed out that the diplomat in question was not among the category of those who would normally qualify for immunities and privileges under the relevant Vienna conventions, to which this country is signatory.

This having been pointed out, however, it did not influence the minister’s decision to emphasise the profound nature of the regret upon which the apology was founded.

Seeking as it must to avoid a recurrence of such a foul up on the part of local authorities, the ministry would be expected to conduct its own forensic examination about what would have gone wrong here.

Questions about whether or not the ministry was approached on the decision by the police to effect the search of the diplomat are deserving of earnest, comprehensive pursuit.

What is the basis upon which the search of a diplomat would have been deemed necessary, when such an official had been received by officers at the ministry upon his arrival in the country, is also part of the mystery to be explained, if the process of understanding is to be faithfully adhered to.

Hard to accept in the sequence of events which may have been followed with this incident, is that the police decision to undertake this exercise may have been approved without reference to the relevant authority at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

That the search itself, erroneous as it has turned out to have been, would have been conducted with the details as have been reported, made it even more offensive.

All the protocols involved in ensuring that this was a genuine error never to be repeated, must therefore be observed, and these can only be ensured with the kind of thorough search for answers that is now mandatory.