Four more charges for Kaia Sealy

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The charges against Ka­ia Sealy con­tin­ue to climb. Fol­low­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that four ad­di­tion­al charges were lev­elled against her for al­leged gun and am­mu­ni­tion of­fences.

The charges in­clude 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.

Sealy, 24, was al­so charged with three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice; and manslaugh­ter in that she un­law­ful­ly killed Joshua Sama­roo, dur­ing the in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20, at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine.

Po­lice stressed yes­ter­day that while war­rants have been is­sued re­gard­ing some of the charges, they have not yet been ex­e­cut­ed on Sealy, who re­mains out of the ju­ris­dic­tion.

The ini­tial charges were laid dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing on May 21, and came hours af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro told re­porters that crim­i­nal charges would have been forth­com­ing in the mat­ter af­ter a di­rec­tive from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Gue­var­ro stopped short of con­firm­ing who would have been charged at the time, fu­elling spec­u­la­tion that the po­lice of­fi­cers re­spon­si­ble would have been in the fir­ing line.

Sealy, her at­tor­neys Lar­ry Williams and Fay­ola Sandy, Sama­roo’s fam­i­ly and the na­tion were blind­sided and shocked when it was an­nounced hours lat­er that Sealy was the one fac­ing crim­i­nal charges.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Sealy’s at­tor­neys de­clined to say much fol­low­ing the vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Mas­ter Nazeera Ali.

How­ev­er, Sandy as­sured, “Our client is con­tin­u­ing to co­op­er­ate ful­ly with the au­thor­i­ties.”

She added, “Like every cit­i­zen, Miss Sealy is en­ti­tled to due process, pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness, and the pro­tec­tion of the law.”

An­oth­er hear­ing is sched­uled for Mon­day.

Pressed to say if and when Sealy was plan­ning to re­turn to the coun­try, both Williams and Sandy in­sist­ed they would is­sue a de­tailed state­ment to­day.

Guardian Me­dia learned that the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, which falls un­der the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs, would be the agency tasked with se­cur­ing Sealy’s re­turn to T&T.

An email was sent to the di­rec­tor of the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, Sher­iza Khan, yes­ter­day ask­ing if Sealy’s ex­tra­di­tion would be pur­sued, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to last evening.

Sama­roo, 31, was killed dur­ing the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing on Jan­u­ary 20, whilst his 24-year-old com­mon-law wife was left paral­ysed.

Sealy, a moth­er of one, is cur­rent­ly in the US re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment.

On Jan­u­ary 20, Sama­roo and Sealy had gone to Mal­oney Gar­dens but drove off af­ter be­ing stopped by the po­lice. A chase en­sued and came to an end in St Au­gus­tine when the ve­hi­cle dri­ven by Sama­roo crashed.

A video record­ing lat­er re­leased showed of­fi­cers shoot­ing at Sama­roo and Sealy in the ve­hi­cle. Sama­roo was pro­nounced dead at hos­pi­tal.

Three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice, con­trary to Sec­tion 12 of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08

Manslaugh­ter, con­trary to the com­mon law, in that Ka­ia Sealy un­law­ful­ly killed Joshua Sama­roo

Pos­ses­sion of a firearm

Pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion

Pos­ses­sion of a firearm to en­dan­ger life

Dis­charg­ing a firearm with­in 40 me­tres of a pub­lic place.