Kaia appeals for time; insists she’s no fugitive

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Ka­ia Sealy is not a fugi­tive and is will­ing to sur­ren­der her­self to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties as soon as she is med­ical­ly cleared to trav­el back from the Unit­ed States.

This as­sur­ance comes from her at­tor­neys, Fay­ola Sandy and Lar­ry Williams, who said yes­ter­day that she has been and will con­tin­ue to co­op­er­ate with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors prob­ing the in­ci­dent sur­round­ing the po­lice-in­volved in­ci­dent, in which she and her com­mon-law hus­band Joshua Sama­roo were shot in Jan­u­ary.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia in New­town, Port-of-Spain, Sandy stressed that Sealy has nev­er evad­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice mem­bers prob­ing the mat­ter. How­ev­er, she said Sealy needs time to com­plete the med­ical mat­ters she went to the US to deal with.

“From the com­mence­ment of this mat­ter or the ini­ti­a­tion of this mat­ter, Ka­ia has al­ways co­op­er­at­ed with the po­lice and she has no in­ten­tion of evad­ing any kind of law­ful process,” Sandy said.

In­sist­ing Sealy had vol­un­tar­i­ly pro­vid­ed a writ­ten state­ment to the po­lice on Feb­ru­ary 23, Sandy as­sured, “She has all in­ten­tions of com­ing back to Trinidad.”

Sandy re­it­er­at­ed that Sealy on­ly learned charges had been prof­fered by the po­lice and war­rants is­sued via the TTPS me­dia re­lease, at the same time the rest of the coun­try did. How­ev­er, she not­ed that af­ter the po­lice had a vir­tu­al hear­ing with a High Court mas­ter in the mat­ter, in Sealy’s ab­sence, that same day (May 21), at which the of­fi­cers re­vealed the charges she was fac­ing, her le­gal coun­sel wast­ed no time reach­ing out to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for dis­clo­sure on May 22 and a fur­ther re­quest on May 25. The TTPS al­so laid four fur­ther charges against Sealy on Tues­day (May 26).

Sealy, 24, is fac­ing a slew of charges, in­clud­ing three counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm at the po­lice; manslaugh­ter, in that she un­law­ful­ly caused the death of Joshua Sama­roo dur­ing the in­ci­dent; 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.

The shoot­ing in­ci­dent oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 20 at the cor­ner of Col­lege Road and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine, fol­low­ing a high-speed chase that start­ed in Mal­oney.

The moth­er of a five-year-old girl is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing med­ical and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive care abroad fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, which left her with se­vere spinal in­juries.

“Ev­i­dence to sup­port that has al­so been pro­vid­ed,” Sandy stat­ed, adding, “In that re­gard, we would have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, ask­ing for a pe­ri­od of time which would be con­sis­tent with the med­ical ev­i­dence she would have pro­vid­ed in re­la­tion to her on­go­ing care.”

Asked about claims that Sealy may now be la­belled a fugi­tive and that strong-arm tac­tics would be em­ployed by rel­e­vant agen­cies to have her re­turn to T&T, Williams asked, “How can you be a fugi­tive if you are not run­ning from the law?

“When Miss Sealy left Trinidad, she was not charged with any crime. She lit­er­al­ly could not run away, so now that they have charged her, she has now be­come aware be­cause we fig­ured it out and we are now in the process of hav­ing her come back, and she wants to come back.”

Sandy said Sealy on­ly left the ju­ris­dic­tion af­ter they had been in­formed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors ear­ly on that she was not un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Williams ad­mit­ted, “The au­thor­i­ties have the pow­er if they want to use the ex­tra­di­tion process.”

Agree­ing with what Sandy said, he added, “She (Sealy) wants to come back. She is not evad­ing any cap­ture.”

Sandy ex­plained that they have al­ways been trans­par­ent in their com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the TTPS, but have not al­ways been able to get the in­for­ma­tion they are seek­ing in re­turn in or­der to prop­er­ly rep­re­sent their client.

Re­fer­ring to Sealy’s med­ical con­di­tion at this time, which he said had left her with lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty, he added, “She can­not phys­i­cal­ly come back at present. She will be back. She just needs to fin­ish this lit­tle area of care she is do­ing, maybe a month or less, but we have sent cor­re­spon­dence to­day and hope­ful­ly, calmer heads will pre­vail.”

Sandy said Sealy was await­ing the de­liv­ery of a cus­tomised wheel­chair but was still shak­en by the state of af­fairs in the case.

“Ka­ia main­tains her in­no­cence and un­der­stand­ably, she is up­set,” Sandy said.

She said al­though the sit­u­a­tion has been “a bit daunt­ing” for Sealy, she said, “She is in good spir­its and is trust­ing in the process and she is co­op­er­at­ing.”

Friends and fam­i­ly of Sealy staged a protest out­side the of­fice of the DPP yes­ter­day.

Sandy al­so re­vealed that the third vir­tu­al hear­ing in the case will be held on Mon­day and at­tor­neys are hop­ing Sealy will be able to join on­line.