Joshua Samaroo’s father in disbelief: ‘This is not the Kaia I know’

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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Shell-shocked and in dis­be­lief that his daugh­ter-in-law is now fac­ing crim­i­nal charges and ac­cused of killing his son, Christo­pher Sama­roo yes­ter­day tes­ti­fied that Ka­ia Sealy was noth­ing short of an an­gel who loved Joshua Sama­roo dear­ly.

Strug­gling to ac­cept what he said were very “far-fetched” claims that the 24-year-old moth­er of one was re­spon­si­ble for his son’s death, Christo­pher de­nied this as he said, “I don’t even want to make a state­ment on that. That is so far-fetched from my mind.

“It’s like I watch­ing my son and say­ing well, you know, you are a killer. No, no, no, I can’t do that. I have to get ev­i­dence. I don’t know her like that. I know her as very, very nice per­son.”

He in­sist­ed Sealy was “a very, very lov­ing, nice, giv­ing per­son.”

Re­veal­ing that she was al­ways on her phone re­search­ing hair­styles and hair­dress­ing tech­niques when she vis­it­ed his Mar­aval home, he re­called chat­ting and ex­chang­ing views on var­i­ous top­ics with her when­ev­er the cou­ple vis­it­ed.

“I have no prob­lem with her. I am just shocked that she is in this kind of a mess. I hope that God steps in and give her a hand to get her­self out of this one,” he said.

Hold­ing firm to the be­lief that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro was in­volved in a plot to cov­er up what re­al­ly hap­pened and pro­tect the of­fi­cers in­volved, he urged the top cop to come clean.

“Sir, just do your job. Do it to the best of your abil­i­ty. Be hon­est, that’s all,” he begged.

Claim­ing Gue­var­ro was “not se­ri­ous about his work” if he could al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to fol­low the path it did to reach such a con­clu­sion, Sama­roo said, “He is try­ing to save his peo­ple, his po­lice of­fi­cers, even if they are do­ing wrong.”

He said ef­forts were be­ing made to “get them out of what­ev­er hot seat they are in, un­like oth­ers that have passed through.”

Sama­roo said Gue­var­ro was now “back-ped­alling” and that prayer alone was what would now save T&T.

Fur­ther al­lud­ing to a cov­er-up, he said, “Right now, every­thing is kind of scat­tered be­cause you are hear­ing one thing one day, and the next day, you are hear­ing an­oth­er thing.

“You don’t know what to be­lieve and right now, there is noth­ing again to tin­ker my brains about, you know, this lil coun­try gone through. We gone through, we gone through. And we need to come back.”

To the of­fi­cers in­volved in the shoot­ing, he said, “I pray that your fam­i­ly is safe.”

But he cau­tioned, “There is a God and God don’t sleep at all.”

De­spon­dent at the shock­ing turn of events, Sama­roo lament­ed, “We don’t have any­body to save us again. We don’t have any­body to seek our in­ter­ests. T&T gone through.”

Ref­er­enc­ing the word “lie,” which was how he ini­tial­ly de­scribed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s claims against Sealy, Sama­roo said, “That is all that is go­ing in this coun­try right now, every sin­gle thing is a lie.”

Just like the rest of the coun­try, Sama­roo said he, too, was “very dis­ap­point­ed” with the an­nounce­ment by the TTPS that Sealy was the one now fac­ing crim­i­nal charges.

How­ev­er, he ac­ced­ed, “I don’t know all the facts.”

How­ev­er, he said he was not ex­pect­ing to be in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion at the end of the probe.

“I have to wait and see what is dish­ing out in fu­ture, what is tak­ing place, as there is a lot of hearsay, they-say, them-say, I say, say from the sky, say from the ground, all over... and right now, I am to­tal­ly con­fused about all what is go­ing on, every sin­gle thing.”

Asked how Joshua’s twin broth­er, Caleb, was cop­ing, the griev­ing fa­ther said, “He is both­ered but I am keep­ing every­body safe. We just have to keep it to­geth­er and hope for the best.

“I am pray­ing and ask­ing God, with the peo­ple around me, the two girls who usu­al­ly do the protests, the pop­u­la­tion of T&T, and every­body who is lis­ten­ing to the sound of my voice, that is con­cerned, that is in shock too, like me... I have to say we will get there.”

Call­ing on the coun­try to pray, he said, “The coun­try gone down, straight down.”

In­di­cat­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go was in a worse off po­si­tion when com­pared to its Cari­com neigh­bour Ja­maica, Sama­roo in­sist­ed, “We are not hear­ing from the politi­cians. They are just silent. They don’t care.”

De­spite the coun­try be­ing in what he claimed was an “abyss,” he said hope is eter­nal but the ques­tion is when.

“When will hope come?” he asked.

He agreed the coun­try was a failed state and the pop­u­la­tion was liv­ing among “snakes, cen­tipedes, scor­pi­ons... you name it. And these are the peo­ple who are sup­posed to guard us, guide us and pro­tect us. But the pop­u­la­tion is un­der siege.”