Trust the process

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

“Trust the process.”

That is the lat­est ad­vice to mem­bers of the pub­lic from at­tor­ney Criston CJ Williams, who is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly of Joshua Sama­roo, as emo­tions con­tin­ue to run high over the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s han­dling of the probe in­to his death in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in­ci­dent Jan­u­ary. 

While Williams yes­ter­day said the mat­ter is now en­tire­ly in the hands of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, he re­vealed that the fam­i­ly is not rul­ing out the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the mat­ter could ul­ti­mate­ly be deemed an ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Williams said Sama­roo’s fam­i­ly is pre­pared to let jus­tice take its course fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion made by the DPP to di­rect that manslaugh­ter and shoot­ing with in­tent charges be laid against Sama­roo’s part­ner and the moth­er of his child Ka­ia Sealy.

On Jan­u­ary 20 in St Au­gus­tine, Sama­roo was killed and Sealy left paral­ysed af­ter a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing, fol­low­ing a po­lice chase that start­ed in Mal­oney and end­ed in St Au­gus­tine. Part of the fi­nal mo­ments of the in­ci­dent, which was cap­tured on CCTV, has since gone vi­ral.

De­spite pub­lic out­cry af­ter the probe end­ed with no of­fi­cers be­ing charged, Williams said the fam­i­ly is con­fi­dent Gas­pard knows what he is do­ing and warned against con­tin­ued pub­lic spec­u­la­tion while the le­gal process un­folds.

Williams said, “The DPP is a very wise guy. There must be a rea­son why the charge was brought, and it will be fool­ish ac­tu­al­ly and to­tal­ly un­wise for any­one to con­tin­ue spec­u­lat­ing un­til they see the DPP and have trust in his process.”

Last Fri­day, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, al­so en­dorsed Gas­pard’s de­ci­sion, say­ing he does not be­lieve the DPP is some­one who acts on im­pulse. He too said Gas­pard would on­ly have di­rect­ed that charges be laid on valid grounds.

Yes­ter­day, Williams al­so de­fend­ed re­cent state­ments made by Sama­roo’s fa­ther, Christo­pher and sis­ter Chris­tine, in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, in which it was al­leged that Sealy was known to the TTPS. But, Williams said there was no switch in the fam­i­ly’s po­si­tion.

In the in­ter­view, Sama­roo’s sis­ter Chris­tine said she was fo­cused on get­ting jus­tice for her broth­er, even as she re­vealed she had de­vel­oped sus­pi­cions about Ka­ia short­ly af­ter the shoot­ing, but had been per­suad­ed to drop them.

Williams added, “As far as I’m aware, the fa­ther and the fam­i­ly mem­bers re­main res­olute in their be­lief in her (Sealy’s) in­no­cence un­til proven guilty. They re­main res­olute in their love for Joshua’s child and the moth­er of that child, and the fa­ther specif­i­cal­ly.”

Asked if the fam­i­ly had been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Sealy, Williams said he was not in a po­si­tion to com­ment on that.

Asked if the fam­i­ly planned to pub­licly show sup­port for Sealy, in­clud­ing by join­ing protest ac­tion, he said the fam­i­ly did not share that in­for­ma­tion with him.

No charges have yet been laid against Sealy, as she con­tin­ues to seek med­ical treat­ment in the Unit­ed States. 

Po­lice said Sealy has the op­tion of re­turn­ing to T&T of her own vo­li­tion, but if she re­fus­es, there are ex­tra­di­tion treaties in place be­tween T&T and the US that can be used by of­fi­cers to bring her back home.

Williams said his fo­cus is now on the mat­ter be­ing what he de­scribed as a pos­si­ble “ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing” at the hands of the po­lice.

He said, “My fo­cus is on an ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing at the hands of the TTPS be­cause, ac­cord­ing to Ka­ia’s own words, when Joshua was thrown in­to a ve­hi­cle and she was thrown on top of him, he was still gasp­ing for air. That’s my ma­jor con­cern, ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings.”

Williams added that both Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der now have to an­swer a num­ber of out­stand­ing ques­tions.

He added, “What was the ra­dio chat­ter when the in­ci­dent hap­pened? What is the ra­dio chat­ter from Mal­oney? What is the ra­dio chat­ter from the chase? What was the im­me­di­ate ra­dio chat­ter when the in­ci­dent hap­pened? Bal­lis­tics re­ports? Foren­sic analy­sis? Those sim­ple ba­sic ques­tions that will bring clo­sure to our fam­i­ly, like how ex­act­ly your son died?”

Guardian Me­dia is al­so await­ing a re­sponse from Gue­var­ro on what time­line has been giv­en to Sealy be­fore ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings take place.

Williams ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that it is dif­fi­cult to pre­dict how the case will un­fold.