Rhon­dor Dowlat

The Em­bassy of Japan in T&T yes­ter­day post­ed an ad­vi­so­ry to all its na­tion­als propos­ing to vis­it this coun­try, fol­low­ing the mur­der of Japan­ese na­tion­al Asa­mi Na­gakiya.

The ad­vi­so­ry, ti­tled "Safe­ty pre­cau­tions dur­ing vis­its in the coun­try (T&T)," is dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 11, 2016.

The state­ment men­tioned that the body of a woman, who ap­par­ent­ly came to the coun­try to par­tic­i­pate in Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, was dis­cov­ered at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. It, how­ev­er, did not go on to state the vic­tim's name and cause of death.

The ad­vi­so­ry not­ed, how­ev­er, that the rate of vi­o­lent crimes in T&T has in­creased over the last few years and urged all vis­i­tors to be vig­i­lant.

"Avoid en­coun­ter­ing any un­ex­pect­ed threats to per­son­al safe­ty, please min­imise any un­nec­es­sary night time out­ings. How­ev­er, if you need to go out at night, such as in cas­es of emer­gen­cies, please be aware of your sur­round­ings and ex­er­cise cau­tion at all times and all lo­ca­tions," the state­ment said.

Japan­ese am­bas­sador to T&T, His Ex­cel­len­cy Mit­su-Hiko Oka­da, said yes­ter­day he was sad­dened by the mur­der of Japan­ese pan­nist Asa­mi Na­gakiya.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to the GML En­ter­prise Desk, Oka­da said, "I feel very sad, she was a very tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­ual."

He said the em­bassy had been re­ceiv­ing a lot of sup­port and mes­sages of sym­pa­thy from Trinida­di­ans.

Asked whether he had con­tact­ed Na­gakiya's rel­a­tives in Japan, Oka­da said he had not done so yet. He said he did not want to say more to add to the pain.

An of­fi­cial at the em­bassy yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mur­der of Na­gakiya were be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored by Oka­da.

Asked if Na­gakiya's rel­a­tives were on their way to T&T, the of­fi­cial said that in­for­ma­tion could not be dis­closed to the me­dia.

The T&T Guardian was told by a po­lice source, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, that they had re­ceived strict in­struc­tions from the em­bassy to lim­it the in­for­ma­tion giv­en to the lo­cal me­dia. The of­fi­cer added that they have al­so been in­struct­ed to guard close­ly their find­ings with re­spect to the case.

Since the dis­cov­ery of Na­gakiya's body at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Ash Wednes­day and the au­top­sy re­sult which con­firmed she was man­u­al­ly stran­gled to death, T&T has shot in­to the spot­light in in­ter­na­tion­al news head­lines.

On Thurs­day, a re­port ti­tled Japan­ese mu­si­cian who fre­quent­ed Caribbean Car­ni­val found stran­gled in Trinidad ap­peared in the Japan Times, a staff re­port by Reuters out of Ky­o­do, Japan.

Yes­ter­day, an ar­ti­cle ap­peared in the Wash­ing­ton Post ti­tled–Out­rage in Trinidad af­ter may­or blames Car­ni­val killing on dancer's lewd be­hav­iour. The ar­ti­cle's head­line fo­cused on the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing state­ments made by Port-of-Spain May­or Ray­mond Tim Kee fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of Na­gakiya's body.

Na­gakiya, 30, was stran­gled to death be­fore she was thrown in­to some bush­es un­der a tree at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah be­tween Car­ni­val Tues­day and Ash Wednes­day.

The Wash­ing­ton Post's ar­ti­cle was writ­ten by Michael E Miller.

Quot­ing both the T&T Guardian and CNC3's re­ports, Miller wrote: "Af­ter two days of joy, the killing came as a shock for lo­cals and the thou­sands of tourists who flock to the is­land na­tion every year for the fa­mous­ly vi­brant fes­ti­val."

Re­fer­ring to Tim Kee's con­tro­ver­sial state­ment, Miller wrote: "Out­rage over the crime, how­ev­er, quick­ly shift­ed to­wards the city's may­or af­ter he sug­gest­ed that by dress­ing in a re­veal­ing cos­tume and danc­ing, Na­gakiya was to blame for her own killing...Kee's cringe-wor­thy com­ments kept get­ting worse, as he tried to link the Japan­ese mu­si­cian's killing to Car­ni­val cul­ture."

Miller al­so men­tioned that Na­gakiya was not the first per­son to die dur­ing re­cent Car­ni­vals in Trinidad. He said: "Last year, five peo­ple were slain dur­ing the fes­ti­val...lead­ing of­fi­cials to promise bet­ter se­cu­ri­ty in 2016."

Re­gion­al­ly, Na­gakiya's mur­der was high­light­ed in the Ja­maica Glean­er, Ja­maican Ob­serv­er and St Lu­cia's on­line news Web site.

An ar­ti­cle al­so ap­peared on the Glob­al News web­site writ­ten by Chris Jancelewicz. In his ar­ti­cle Trinidad may­or blames woman killed at Car­ni­val for her own death, Jancelewicz al­so spoke of Tim Kee's state­ment.