Israel Khan backs DPP’s decision in Samaroo case

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, yes­ter­day en­dorsed Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard’s de­ci­sion in the Joshua Sama­roo shoot­ing probe, say­ing he (Gas­pard) was not some­one giv­en to im­pulse.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, in re­sponse to the pub­lic out­cry over the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s an­nounce­ment that Sama­roo’s girl­friend, Ka­ia Sealy, was want­ed in con­nec­tion with his killing, Khan said if the DPP gave in­struc­tions to charge Sealy with manslaugh­ter, he would have done so based on valid grounds.

Khan said Gas­pard was known in le­gal cir­cles as be­ing a very knowl­edge­able and ex­pe­ri­enced crim­i­nal ad­vo­cate who is “fair and fear­less” and “could not be ma­nip­u­lat­ed.”

“We all have to wait and see what will come out of it in re­la­tion to the charges,” Khan said.

“If there were con­fus­ing re­ports and the sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence were not point­ed in that di­rec­tion, I am sure that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions would have ad­vised that an in­quest be con­duct­ed in this mat­ter.”

He added that had the mat­ter gone to in­quest, Sealy’s rel­a­tives would have had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to scru­ti­nise the State’s case against her.

Khan said as far as he is con­cerned as head of the CBA, due process has tak­en place.

Mean­while, de­fence at­tor­ney Mario Mer­ritt said while he could not com­ment on the facts of the case, as he was not po­si­tioned with all of it, a tri­al will re­veal all that the DPP had giv­en ad­vice on.

“What is in the pub­lic do­main may not be what the DPP made his de­ci­sion on. He may have more in­for­ma­tion than I do, that is why there is a tri­al,” Mer­ritt said.

In a me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said Gas­pard had ad­vised that Sealy be charged with three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm to­wards po­lice of­fi­cers, and manslaugh­ter in re­la­tion to Sama­roo’s killing.

Sama­roo was killed on Jan­u­ary 20 in St Au­gus­tine, dur­ing an al­leged ex­change of gun­fire with po­lice of­fi­cers, fol­low­ing a high-speed car chase which had be­gun in Mal­oney Gar­dens.

There was no word yes­ter­day on if and when Sealy, who is in the US re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment, will re­turn to the coun­try. The 24-year-old was left paral­ysed fol­low­ing the shoot­ing.

Le­gal ex­perts yes­ter­day said while Sealy did not have a dead­line by which to re­turn to T&T, it would be up to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to de­cide if and when the TTPS would ini­ti­ate ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings.

“It is sole­ly up to the po­lice now in terms of the time frame and mov­ing the mat­ter for­ward,” a le­gal of­fi­cial said.