Kaia Sealy returns home to face charges

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Ka­ia Sealy is due to re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go ear­ly this morn­ing.

The woman in­volved in the con­tro­ver­sial po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine on Jan­u­ary 20, which led to the death of her part­ner Joshua Sama­roo and left her paral­ysed, is sched­uled to ar­rive at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around 1:45 am to­day.

Her re­turn to this coun­try comes 20 days af­ter the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in­struct­ed the po­lice that Sealy be charged with three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm against po­lice of­fi­cers and one charge of manslaugh­ter in re­la­tion to Sama­roo’s death. On May 21, po­lice ob­tained war­rants to charge Sealy with the four of­fences. Days lat­er, on May 26, dur­ing a vir­tu­al High Court hear­ing, au­thor­i­ties added four more firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences: pos­ses­sion of a firearm, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion, pos­ses­sion of a firearm to en­dan­ger life, and dis­charg­ing a firearm with­in 40 me­tres of a pub­lic place against Sealy.

The an­nounce­ment of the charges led to a pub­lic up­roar, with many cit­i­zens ques­tion­ing the de­ci­sion to charge Sealy af­ter a video of the po­lice shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine was re­leased days af­ter the in­ci­dent, which al­leged­ly ap­peared to show Sama­roo, un­armed and with his hands up.

The protests oc­curred out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, with friends and sup­port­ers of Sealy call­ing for a re­sponse from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and de­mand­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro. The up­roar led to the DPP is­su­ing a state­ment, warn­ing me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions and so­cial me­dia users against pub­lish­ing ma­te­r­i­al that could prej­u­dice on­go­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings aris­ing from the killing of Joshua Sama­roo.

The DPP stressed that the fil­ing of charges should not be in­ter­pret­ed as proof of guilt.

Sealy, who was left wheel­chair-bound fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, had been un­der­go­ing med­ical treat­ment abroad and was on­ly re­cent­ly cleared by doc­tors to trav­el back to T&T.

Sealy’s le­gal team, which is led by Fay­ola Sandy and in­cludes Lar­ry Williams, has main­tained Sealy’s in­no­cence through­out.

The two have con­sis­tent­ly rub­bished claims that Sealy had evad­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors by flee­ing to the US and as­sured she would re­turn to this coun­try to face the charges.

Af­ter a slew of charges against Sealy were an­nounced, the 24-year-old is­sued a state­ment break­ing her si­lence. In her state­ment on May 25, she said she is not a gang­ster, has nev­er owned a gun and re­mains in dis­be­lief over the en­tire sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing the death of her part­ner Joshua Sama­roo and the in­juries she sus­tained.

“I am not a gang­ster. I have nev­er been in trou­ble with the law. I have on­ly ever seen a gun on an armed se­cu­ri­ty or po­lice of­fi­cer. I have nev­er held a gun in my life, much less fired one at po­lice of­fi­cers. I have nev­er had a friend, fam­i­ly mem­ber or part­ner in­tro­duce a gun in­to my en­vi­ron­ment. This is not en­ter­tain­ment for me. This is not loss of a job. This is not loss of some high rank­ing po­si­tion. This is my re­al life,” she said.

On Jan­u­ary 20, Joshua was shot 19 times by po­lice while in his car at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine, fol­low­ing a high-speed chase that start­ed in Mal­oney.