Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has been thrown in­to mourn­ing af­ter the death of for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph.

Joseph died on Jan­u­ary 5 while va­ca­tion­ing with friends in To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Joseph was stay­ing at the Sky­lark Vil­la, Run­ning Ground, MtIrvine when he left with his friend George Caruth of Hale­land Park, Mar­aval around 7 am to take a swim at near­by Grange Bay. The Guardian un­der­stands that dur­ing the swim Joseph got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty, and Caruth tried to as­sist but failed.

Re­spond­ing to calls made to the Old Grange Po­lice Sta­tion, two of­fi­cers ar­rived at the beach where they­saw the body float­ing away from the shore.

The Guardian un­der­stands, with the as­sis­tance of 17-year-old Zen Ori­on, PC Quam­i­na, who was in uni­form, changed his clothes, swam out and re­trieved the body around 8:50 am.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr. Kale Fer­gu­son vis­it­ed the scene, ex­am­ined the body and or­dered it re­moved to the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing an au­top­sy.

The body was iden­ti­fied by George Caruth and for­mer CL­Fi­nan­cial di­rec­tor An­dre Mon­teil, both of whom were stay­ing at the Sky­lark Vil­la with Joseph.

PC Quam­i­na of the Old Grange Po­lice Sta­tion is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Grange Bay is a small beach just be­fore the en­trance of the pop­u­lar Mt Irvine Bay Ho­tel. The beach is known for its cur­rent, rough wa­ters and huge swells. It is al­so fre­quent­ed by surfers from all over the world. Grange Bay is not pa­trolled by life­guards.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the death of Mar­tin Joseph, Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader and Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Orville Lon­don de­scribed Joseph's per­son­al­i­ty as unique and not­ed that he was the mas­ter­mind be­hind­many of the par­ty's po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns.

"There is on­ly one Mar­tin Joseph to be quite hon­est–metic­u­lous, pro­fes­sion­al...I think if there was one per­son who was re­spon­si­ble for struc­tur­ing the cam­paign that would haveled to that over­whelm­ing vic­to­ry that we had in last As­sem­bly elec­tions it would have been Mar­tin Joseph, but from a per­son­al lev­el he was pri­vate per­son but a good friend, a good com­rade, a good col­league."

Lon­don said Joseph was re­spon­si­ble for many pos­i­tive things in the par­ty and by ex­ten­sion the coun­try.He said Trinidad and To­ba­go has suf­fered a great loss.

THA Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary and Sec­re­tary for Tourism Tracey David­son-Ce­les­tine said the Joseph's death was a sig­nif­i­cant loss to the PNM.

Speak­ing to the me­dia on the beach where­Joseph drowned, David­son-Ce­les­tine said she was "in shock."

"I am in to­tal shock and I am in deep mourn­ing at this time. This is a sig­nif­i­cant loss for us with­in the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and of course with­in all of To­ba­go and through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is not some­thing we ex­pect­ed at all, so I re­al­ly want­ed to ex­tend deep­est con­do­lences to the PNM fam­i­ly at this time, all of Trinidad and To­ba­go and his fam­i­ly in this time of loss," Ce­les­tine said.

THA Sec­re­tary for Health and So­cial Ser­vices Clau­dia Groome-Duke, who was al­so on the scene,de­scribed Mr. Joseph as vi­tal to the PNM.

"This is some­body who is the life blood of our or­gan­i­sa­tion. At this time I re­al­ly want to reach out to his fam­i­ly and the PNM fam­i­ly. I know it is a sig­nif­i­cant loss for all of us," Groome- Duke said.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer for the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Dr. Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus said Mar­tin Joseph was a key team play­er of the PNM. She said he was in­stru­men­tal in PNM's win dur­ing the THA elec­tions and he would be sore­ly missed.

"Mar­tin Joseph was a dear friend, a col­league and key team play­er on Team Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and there­fore he would be great­ly missed and I am sure that the par­ty will go in­to a pe­ri­od of mourn­ing and to­geth­er we would come out stronger, be­cause we know that Mar­tin's lega­cy will con­tin­ue to re­side with­in each of us," Dr. Tsoiafatt-An­gus said.