An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

Rel­a­tives of po­lice of­fi­cer Rafael Joseph have round­ly re­ject­ed claims that he re­port­ed­ly killed him­self while in the cus­tody of prison of­fi­cials.

In­sist­ing his demise was the re­sult of foul play, they yes­ter­day tear­ful­ly plead­ed for an­swers from Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at their at­tor­ney’s of­fice in Port-of-Spain, rel­a­tives de­mand­ed jus­tice, not­ing the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to Joseph’s death yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The 32-year-old fa­ther of a two-year-old girl was found naked and un­re­spon­sive in his cell at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC), San­ta Rosa, around 8 am. He was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal.

Af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed on De­cem­ber 30, 2025, in con­nec­tion with an un­fold­ing nar­cotics traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Joseph was await­ing ex­tra­di­tion to the US. Guardian Me­dia was told Joseph sub­mit­ted a re­quest to meet with Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency (CIA) of­fi­cials dur­ing his in­car­cer­a­tion but was de­nied by lo­cal of­fi­cials.

Joseph, who was last at­tached to the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, was al­so re­port­ed­ly placed un­der a sui­cide watch ear­li­er this month af­ter his men­tal health al­leged­ly be­gan de­te­ri­o­rat­ing.

Rel­a­tives con­firmed ab­nor­mal be­hav­iour­al changes. Chok­ing back tears, one fe­male rel­a­tive said dur­ing sev­er­al vis­its be­tween June 5 and 9, “his be­hav­iour was very odd and pe­cu­liar.”

Fear­ing Joseph’s last days may have been com­pro­mised by of­fi­cials need­ing to “cov­er up” some­thing, his fam­i­ly said, “This was a com­plete switch in char­ac­ter and some­thing had to have hap­pened to trig­ger him.”

They al­so claimed they were de­nied any op­por­tu­ni­ty to see Joseph’s body yes­ter­day and lat­er re­sist­ed re­quests by prison of­fi­cials for an au­top­sy to be done pri­or to them see­ing him.

Rel­a­tives said Joseph had not been on any med­ica­tion since be­ing in­car­cer­at­ed and claims he had sunk in­to a de­pres­sion and was sui­ci­dal in the last few weeks were un­true.

De­mand­ing an­swers and ac­cess to his body now, Joseph’s fam­i­ly said he was fierce­ly pro­tec­tive of them, loy­al and hard-work­ing to a fault. —An­na-Lisa Paul

“I want to know how a man who was strong, brave, bold and full of life and en­er­gy end­ed up un­re­spon­sive in a cell,” one woman cried.

“Why didn’t any­one help him? He was cry­ing out for help and no one did any­thing.”