Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Amidst the grief of his sib­ling’s mur­der, Per­ry Ben­gochea, the old­er broth­er of slain fire­man Bruce Leza­ma, said he does not hate his broth­er’s killers.

Ben­gochea made the re­marks dur­ing his ser­mon at Leza­ma’s fu­ner­al at the Ari­ma Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church, De Gannes Street, yes­ter­day.

On Wednes­day, po­lice con­firmed that two Ari­ma men were ex­pect­ed to be charged for Leza­ma’s mur­der.

Leza­ma, 47, was last seen alive on Christ­mas Day. How­ev­er, rel­a­tives grew con­cerned when he did not re­port to work on De­cem­ber 27, 2025.

His body was found down a precipice off Blan­chisseuse Road, Ari­ma, days lat­er, on De­cem­ber 30.

An au­top­sy con­clud­ed that he died by stran­gu­la­tion.

An emo­tion­al Ben­gochea said while a per­son’s first in­stinct would be to heap scorn on any­one who harmed a rel­a­tive, he did not want to hate any­one, es­pe­cial­ly if they had the po­ten­tial for good.

He, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edged that this peace was dif­fi­cult for him.

“It pains me to say I can­not hate them, be­cause we were all born in sin and shaped in in­equity.

“I feel I’m be­tray­ing Bruce by say­ing I don’t hate them, but I must be loy­al to God and not man.”

Ben­gochea al­so re­called how some of his broth­er’s friends were pained by Leza­ma’s death, as they con­sid­ered their will­ing­ness to take mat­ters in­to their own hands if giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“I have heard con­ver­sa­tions in the last five days, and I can un­der­stand ... there are peo­ple here who are so close to Bruce that if giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty with those two guys (sus­pects) alone, they might kill them.

“Peo­ple are will­ing to be­come just like those guys for jus­tice, but I want you to know the Bible says vengeance is mine ... I will re­pay.

“I am not go­ing to make my­self be­come like two mur­der­ers. I am not go­ing to al­low my mind to be sat­u­rat­ed with mur­der be­cause of two mur­der­ers.”

He al­so urged fa­thers to ed­u­cate their chil­dren on spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, as he felt that the world had be­come too ma­te­ri­al­is­tic and dis­tract­ed from the word of God.

Leza­ma’s sis­ter, Vanes­sa Fran­cois, de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy, where she said de­spite the vi­o­lent, un­pre­dictable na­ture of her broth­er’s death, the fu­ner­al was to pay trib­ute to his life as a friend and pro­tec­tor.

“We ho­n­our the fire­fight­er and EMT who stood ready. We ho­n­our the son and broth­er who ar­gued, laughed, for­gave and loved. We ho­n­our the man who showed us strength and hu­man­i­ty in equal mea­sure.

“I want to thank the fire ser­vice. Thank you for stand­ing with Bruce dur­ing his ser­vice, and thank you for stand­ing with us now. Your ded­i­ca­tion, sac­ri­fice and broth­er­hood mat­ter more than words can ex­press.”

Al­so at­tend­ing the cer­e­mo­ny was act­ing As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Gary Sookdeo, who paid trib­ute to Leza­ma’s sense of du­ty and com­mit­ment to the job, as he re­marked on the self­less­ness dis­played as a first re­spon­der to emer­gen­cies.

“For over 17 years, Bruce an­swered the call most peo­ple fear. Run­ning to­wards dan­ger and dis­tress so that oth­ers could find safe­ty and hope. His ser­vice was not just a job, it was a vo­ca­tion and a pas­sion, and he wore the uni­form of the TT Fire Ser­vice with pride and qui­et pro­fes­sion­al­ism.”

The ser­vice be­gan short­ly af­ter 10 am, as mourn­ers packed the bench­es of the Church.

Af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, Leza­ma’s cas­ket, draped in a T&T flag and adorned with his hel­met, was car­ried by col­leagues out of the Church and loaded on­to the tray of a marked Fire Ser­vice ve­hi­cle.

The cas­ket was tak­en to the San­ta Rosa Ceme­tery, dur­ing a pro­ces­sion led by mem­bers of the TT Fire Ser­vice band.