Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the death of Han­nah Mathu­ra, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing her sib­lings say they are now be­ing made aware of cer­tain cir­cum­stances un­earthed by the po­lice probe.

Mathu­ra’s re­mains were found in the back­yard of her fam­i­ly’s Bu­tu Street, Val­sayn South home last Tues­day.

Mathu­ra’s 66-year-old fa­ther and 62-year-old moth­er were de­tained in the mat­ter but the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions or­dered their re­lease last night, or­der­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors to gath­er more in­for­ma­tion in the on­go­ing probe.

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, at­tor­neys San­jiv Bood­hu and Sasha Paula Singh said the Mathu­ra sib­lings had co-op­er­at­ed ful­ly with in­ves­ti­ga­tors through sev­er­al in­ter­views.

With­out re­veal­ing any de­tails, Bood­hu said there were dif­fer­ent pieces of in­for­ma­tion the sib­lings them­selves were not aware of un­til de­tec­tives be­gan their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Sev­er­al facts have come out as a re­sult of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion that they them­selves need to grap­ple with, need to in­ter­nalise and even­tu­al­ly I can on­ly as­sume we will re­ceive in­struc­tions to up­date the pub­lic ac­cord­ing­ly,” Bood­hu said, adding he was cau­tious to re­veal too much in­for­ma­tion which may com­pro­mise the on­go­ing in­quiry.

He al­so con­firmed that none of the sev­en sib­lings had re­turned to the fam­i­ly’s Val­sayn South, home.

Bood­hu added that the sib­lings were still in the process of com­ing to terms with the trau­mat­ic sit­u­a­tion be­fore them.

He said while the Mathu­ra sib­lings want­ed to ex­press their grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the pub­lic for their en­cour­age­ment and sup­port, some de­ri­sive com­ments from some so­cial me­dia users were af­fect­ing his clients.

Re­fer­ring to com­ments where some users sug­gest­ed the sib­lings them­selves should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed, Bood­hu said while the fam­i­ly had not ex­plored le­gal ac­tion against so­cial me­dia news sites who re­post such claims, he im­plored the pub­lic to be wary of un­ver­i­fied state­ments.

“I can­not say the fam­i­ly has gone to the ex­tent of look­ing to seek le­gal ac­tion at this point in time, but cer­tain­ly we con­tin­ue to ad­vise the chil­dren on their rights to any reme­dies that might be ap­plic­a­ble,” he said.

“We would just again en­cour­age the pub­lic and the me­dia to utilise the of­fi­cial means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and take our re­leas­es to be the re­li­able source of in­for­ma­tion.”

Asked if the sib­lings were con­sid­er­ing ob­tain­ing a pro­tec­tion or­der against their fa­ther if he was re­leased or grant­ed bail, Singh, who is the se­nior at­tor­ney on the mat­ter, said they had of­fered ad­vice to their clients, adding the sib­lings felt as­sist­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tors would al­low for jus­tice to be done.

“They are very hope­ful that the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion will come from them fi­nal­ly shar­ing their sto­ries and they are very hope­ful that will lead to a just out­come.”

An au­top­sy on Mathu­ra’s re­mains last week re­vealed that she died from gun­shot wounds.

How­ev­er, Singh said she had not re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the sib­lings as to whether or not there was a gun in their home.

Mathu­ra’s re­mains are still stored at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, pend­ing the re­sults of some tests.

Singh said the is­sue of a fu­ner­al ser­vice for Mathu­ra has been raised by her sib­lings but has not yet been fi­nalised as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not yet com­plete.

“We are not of the view that the time for that is ap­pro­pri­ate. We are not clear on whether the po­lice have com­plet­ed what is nec­es­sary for them on their end to sat­is­fy the sib­lings’ want to go fur­ther.”

Bood­hu said the sib­lings were al­so re­ceiv­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port from the po­lice Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit and com­mend­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and com­pas­sion at this time.

Bood­hu added that one of the sib­lings who is still a mi­nor was ap­proached by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, who has al­so been in­volved in of­fer­ing as­sis­tance and sup­port.