DPP calls for responsible reporting on Samaroo matter

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard has is­sued a warn­ing to me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions and so­cial me­dia users against pub­lish­ing ma­te­r­i­al that could prej­u­dice on­go­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings aris­ing from the killing of Joshua Sama­roo.

Gas­pard broke his si­lence on the mat­ter in a state­ment last night, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the fa­tal shoot­ing of Sama­roo and the se­ri­ous wound­ing of his girl­friend Ka­ia Sealy on Jan­u­ary 20, 2026, had gen­er­at­ed “huge pub­lic in­ter­est,” fu­elled by ex­ten­sive cov­er­age across elec­tron­ic, print and so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

He not­ed that much of the pub­lic re­ac­tion had been shaped by the wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed video footage of the in­ci­dent.

Gas­pard said the footage con­tributed to a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), and al­so prompt­ed an in­quiry by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

He said he had met and spo­ken with the PCA re­gard­ing the mat­ter, adding that fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and his re­view of the ev­i­dence col­lect­ed—in­clud­ing foren­sic ev­i­dence from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre - he ad­vised the po­lice to lay sev­er­al crim­i­nal charges.

How­ev­er, he stressed that the fil­ing of charges should not be in­ter­pret­ed as proof of guilt.

“The pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence re­mains,” Gas­pard said, not­ing that any de­ter­mi­na­tion of guilt lies sole­ly with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of the courts.

He added that, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, his of­fice does not con­duct crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions, nor does it se­lect the ev­i­dence gath­ered by po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

He said: “Nonethe­less, the prefer­ment of crim­i­nal charges in this mat­ter has led to ex­pres­sions of con­cern by mem­bers of the pub­lic, pub­lic protests and the urge to have these charges tried in the pub­lic do­main rather than in the cor­rect le­gal fo­rum, which is the court.”

“In the cir­cum­stances, I am du­ty-bound to warn you that you are not to pub­lish any ma­te­r­i­al which has the po­ten­tial to prej­u­dice the right of the State or the right of any per­son charged in this mat­ter, to a fair tri­al,” he added.

“Fur­ther, I am man­dat­ed to do all in my pow­er to en­sure that the springs of jus­tice re­main un­de­filed and to cur­tail any prospect of ob­jec­tion­able pub­lic­i­ty.”

Gas­pard said he re­mained mind­ful of the com­pet­ing pub­lic in­ter­est con­sid­er­a­tions un­der­pin­ning democ­ra­cy, in­clud­ing free­dom of the press, free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion, free­dom of con­science and the right to a fair hear­ing be­fore an in­de­pen­dent tri­bunal.

“In this coun­try, the rule of law is a price­less as­set and a foun­da­tion of our Con­sti­tu­tion. A re­lat­ed hall­mark and safe­guard is open jus­tice, which con­tem­plates that crim­i­nal tri­als be con­duct­ed in pub­lic and on­ly in the courts of the land, rather than in the me­dia. See Privy Coun­cil case of Boodram v The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go 1996 2 WLR 464,” he said.

He said these le­gal con­sid­er­a­tions pre­vent­ed him from pub­licly dis­cussing the ev­i­dence un­cov­ered dur­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Ac­cord­ing­ly, I trust that the me­dia, in­clu­sive of so­cial me­dia, will act re­spon­si­bly and with the re­quired dose of cir­cum­spec­tion. A fail­ure to be guid­ed by this warn­ing may ren­der the me­dia and those in­volved li­able to con­tempt pro­ceed­ings, since such con­duct would con­sti­tute an un­wel­come in­ter­fer­ence with the due ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice,” Gas­pard said.