PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Trinidad and Tobago government Tuesday said it had obtained a retraction from the Guardian newspaper in Britain that the island had been placed on a “terror blacklist”.

A government statement said that the Ministry of the Attorney general through its British attorneys had “challenged the accuracy of the report and demanded a retraction”.

According to the statement, the newspaper published the article on February 18,  under the headline “Iran tops new terror finance blacklist” and listed countries, including Trinidad and Tobago “as being listed under the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as failing to abide by counter-terrorist financing (CTF) and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols”.

The statement said that in a letter dated March 4 to the lawyers representing the Trinidad and Tobago government, “the newspaper clarified that the FTAF had in fact issued two documents.

“The newspaper noted that one of the documents listed Trinidad and Tobago as being among 20 states with ‘strategic AML and CFT deficiencies’ which the FATF identified as ‘having made progress’ and planned to address.

“The correction was carried in the February 25, 2010 printed and online versions of the UK Guardian, under its ‘Corrections and Clarifications Section’. The Ministry of National Security has also issued a press release denying a similar story published in the Trinidad Guardian on February 21, 2010.”.