Sascha wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The wid­ow of one of the four Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices (LM­CS) divers who were killed in the Paria Fu­el div­ing tragedy two years ago says news of the TTPS probe in­to their deaths has brought her no com­fort.

Vanes­sa Kussie, the wid­ow of Rishi Na­gas­sar, said yes­ter­day there have been too many de­lays in bring­ing jus­tice to the fam­i­lies, who con­tin­ue to suf­fer emo­tion­al­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly.

Kussie was com­ment­ing on a me­dia re­lease by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard on Tues­day, that he had ad­vised Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to in­ves­ti­gate whether a charge of manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence could be laid against Paria or any of­fi­cials, af­ter he pe­rused the Lynch Com­mis­sion of En­quiry re­port in­to the tragedy.

Gas­pard said the Com­mis­sion­er has since as­signed an in­ves­ti­ga­tor.

This com­mis­sion was ini­ti­at­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the trag­ic deaths of Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Yusuf Hen­ry. The men died af­ter they were sucked in­to a Paria un­der­wa­ter pipeline on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022 and be­came trapped for a few days. One man, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived the in­ci­dent.

Kussie, a coun­cil­lor in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said var­i­ous probes in­to this in­ci­dent have been lin­ger­ing for too long.

“Every­one knows what went on with Paria, we were all there. I think they should all be be­hind bars,” she lament­ed.

Kussie, how­ev­er, said she hopes that the TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be com­plet­ed be­fore the end of this year.

“I think there is enough ev­i­dence be­cause Coast Guard are there to help save lives and if Para­ia had called Coast Guard in to point guns at the divers to stop them from res­cu­ing lives, that alone says a lot.”

Com­ment­ing on Paria’s claims that LM­CS and the fam­i­lies’ le­gal teams were de­lay­ing the com­pen­sa­tion process, she said that was “to­tal non­sense” and “lies.”

“They are do­ing the blame game right now. It’s LM­CS ver­sus Paria and we are the ones suf­fer­ing. Christo­pher (Boodram), the lone sur­vivor, can­not work or func­tion. Every­one is strug­gling.”

How­ev­er, she said she will con­tin­ue to fight for jus­tice for her hus­band and the oth­er divers.

“We are go­ing in front of the gates again if we need to. We have to let our voic­es be heard. Paria, you all have to be be­hind bars. If it was up to me you would have been there as soon as they took out my hus­band’s body,” she said, not­ing Paria had failed to “lift a fin­ger” to save the men.

Mean­while, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty Agency’s mat­ter against Paria, its gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed and op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Col­in Piper, LM­CS and its own­er Kaz­im Ali Snr, will again be heard on Sep­tem­ber 11.

They are fac­ing sev­er­al crim­i­nal charges un­der the OSH Act and are ex­pect­ed to be called up­on to plead.