RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly in­ter­ests of two LM­CS divers, says he in­tends to write Paria Fu­el Trad­ing re­quest­ing the footage from a Go­Pro cam­era used in­side the 30-inch di­am­e­ter pipeline the day four divers were sucked in­to a vor­tex.

A 12-minute-long video be­lieved to have been cap­tured in­side the pipeline in which five divers ini­tial­ly dis­ap­peared at Berth No 6, sur­faced on March 10. The footage was record­ed al­most 10 hours af­ter Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry and Christo­pher Boodram were sucked in­to a vor­tex be­tween 2 pm to 3 pm at No. 36 sealine on Feb­ru­ary 25. On­ly Boodram sur­vived the ac­ci­dent.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har said, “It has been sev­er­al weeks since we wrote to Paria and we have re­ceived no fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion or in­fo from Paria.

“We are con­cerned about the in­tegri­ty and preser­va­tion of ev­i­dence, where Go­Pro footage was put in­to so­cial me­dia. That is a trou­bling de­vel­op­ment and the court will pe­ruse all of this and the truth will come out.”

He said he in­tends to write to Paria again next week, re­quest­ing that all doc­u­ments and ev­i­dence be hand­ed over. Paria has not an­swered ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia since the in­ci­dent. 

In an email, it sent, to ques­tions soon af­ter the tragedy, Paria said, “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, at this time, Paria will not be able to re­spond to your ques­tions as there is an on­go­ing OS­HA in­ves­ti­ga­tion; the for­mal es­tab­lish­ment of a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry to in­quire in­to the in­ci­dent; and lawyers act­ing on be­half of cer­tain per­sons af­fect­ed by the in­ci­dent have is­sued pre-ac­tion let­ters there­by ini­ti­at­ing the civ­il lit­i­ga­tion process.”

Paria added that it will “ad­dress all ques­tions and is­sues aris­ing out of or in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent in the ap­pro­pri­ate fo­ra in due course.”

The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency has al­so re­mained mum on on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The agency had come un­der heavy fire for is­su­ing pro­hi­bi­tion no­tices al­most two weeks af­ter the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

In an ear­li­er in­ter­view, in­dus­tri­al ex­pert Vish­nu Ram­jat­tan said it was quite pos­si­ble that the men were alive in air pock­ets, as the air from the hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber would have been sucked in­to the pipeline.

On Thurs­day, at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen held a me­dia con­fer­ence and pro­vid­ed de­tails of a pri­vate au­top­sy done by Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley on the body of Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, which re­vealed he was pos­si­bly alive in­side the pipeline for up to 39 hours af­ter the in­ci­dent. The of­fi­cial death cer­tifi­cate gave Feb­ru­ary 28 as the day of Ali’s death but did not give an es­ti­mat­ed time of death.

Ramdeen al­so called for the CoE in­to the divers’ tragedy to be scrapped.

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, has been named as the Se­nior Le­gal Coun­sel for the com­mis­sion, which will be head­ed by Ja­maica Sir Den­nis Mor­ri­son.

On Thurs­day, Ma­haraj al­so gave the as­sur­ance that as the lead coun­sel, he was com­mit­ted to work­ing to­wards hav­ing the com­mence­ment of the en­quiry ex­pe­dit­ed.  

“As se­nior coun­sel, I com­mit to do­ing what is nec­es­sary to have an ex­pe­dit­ed process and I will work with the chair­man and oth­er com­mis­sion­ers to have the process ex­pe­dit­ed. I am of the firm view that the is­sues which led to the en­quiry are of great pub­lic im­por­tance,” Ma­haraj said.

At­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan is rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­ests of Vanes­sa Kussie and sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram while Ra­mad­har is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s first-born daugh­ter and her moth­er.

Ef­forts to con­tact the OSH Agency for in­for­ma­tion on the on­go­ing probe were un­suc­cess­ful as emails and What­sApp mes­sages sent to com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Kendall Reid went unan­swered.

CoP Ja­cob gets in­ter­im re­port on mat­ter

Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer of the TTPS, ASP Sheri­don Hill, said yes­ter­day that an in­ter­im re­port on the div­ing tragedy has been sub­mit­ted to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob.

“The mat­ter is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. An in­ter­im re­port was sub­mit­ted by In­sp Morales to the Se­nior Supt South­ern Di­vi­sion and then the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still on­go­ing. We can­not com­ment on the de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion but we can say it is still on­go­ing,” Hill said.

Pressed fur­ther on when the of­fi­cers might com­plete their probe, Hill said he could not say.