Akash Sama­roo

On the eve of the nine-year an­niver­sary of Dana See­ta­hal SC’s mur­der, mem­bers of her fam­i­ly are still call­ing for jus­tice.

While 11 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly be­hind bars for the May 4, 2014 killing which rocked the na­tion, rel­a­tives tell Guardian Me­dia the is­sue at heart is that they are still wait­ing for con­vic­tions over a decade lat­er.

“The pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry end­ed in 2020 and up to now, it’s been three years and noth­ing has hap­pened, and it was sup­posed to go to the High Court,” See­ta­hal’s niece Danielle Fran­cois said yes­ter­day.

Fran­cois was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia as her fam­i­ly do­nat­ed a bench and a memo­r­i­al plaque to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School (HWLS) in St Au­gus­tine, which com­mem­o­rat­ed See­ta­hal’s con­tri­bu­tion to the in­sti­tu­tion as well as her lega­cy in law yes­ter­day.

In re­it­er­at­ing their de­sire for the case to pro­ceed and reach a con­clu­sion, Fran­cois called for the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to get the staff it needs.

“We note the calls for the DPP’s Of­fice to be ful­ly staffed, es­pe­cial­ly with ex­pe­ri­enced pros­e­cu­tors and we hope that can help re­lieve the bur­den on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and bring a con­clu­sion to the mat­ters more speed­i­ly for every­one in­volved.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that the two lead pros­e­cu­tors on the See­ta­hal case from the DPP’s Of­fice were el­e­vat­ed to judges last year.

On March 23, 2023, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing bring­ing in for­eign lawyers to staff the DPP’s Of­fice, since the good lawyers were in pri­vate prac­tice, and lawyers fresh out of law school were not ex­pe­ri­enced enough to deal with high pro­file cas­es. This af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard pub­licly stat­ed that his of­fice is un­der­staffed.

Yes­ter­day, Fran­cois said giv­en the cur­rent pace of the jus­tice sys­tem, it is no sur­prise that crime is so preva­lent in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

See­ta­hal was shot dead be­hind the wheel of her SUV while dri­ving along Hamil­ton Hold­er Street in Wood­brook on May 4, 2014.

On Ju­ly 25, 2015, Ra­jaee Ali, his broth­ers Ish­mael and Hamid Ali, De­vaughn Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Earl Richards, Stephan Cum­mings, Kevin Parkin­son, Le­ston Gon­za­les, Ro­get Bouch­er and Gareth Wise­man were charged with the crime.

Ali’s wife Sta­cy Grif­fith, De­on Pe­ters and David Ec­tor were charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act for be­ing mem­bers of a gang, while Grif­fith was ad­di­tion­al­ly charged with as­sist­ing the gang.

The Of­fice of the DPP must file in­dict­ments against the men be­fore the case is put on the High Court cause list of cas­es await­ing tri­al.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Gas­pard, SC, for an up­date but he did not re­spond to our mes­sages.

A se­nior at­tor­ney told Guardian Me­dia that the process usu­al­ly takes be­tween six to eight years un­less it is ex­pe­dit­ed.

But See­ta­hal’s rel­a­tives yes­ter­day said in the mean­time, they want to en­sure her con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion is not for­got­ten.

A plaque over the new­ly do­nat­ed bench at HWLS is not on­ly em­bla­zoned with her name and the years of her birth and death, but there is ital­i­cised Latin with the quote, “Alis Volat Propi­is.”

“This means she flies on her own wings,” ex­plained Fran­cois.

“She carved out her own way in the world, she worked hard, dili­gent­ly and through her per­se­ver­ance, she was able to achieve what she achieved, and I hope that the law stu­dents com­ing here who some­times face chal­lenges in their own lives will draw in­spi­ra­tion from that and know that they too can suc­ceed at this school.”

Fran­cois said See­ta­hal was close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with HWLS in dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ties, as both a tu­tor and in as­sist­ing stu­dents with their moot court.

She said a bench was cho­sen be­cause it al­lows stu­dents to re­lax and col­lect their thoughts. A por­trait of See­ta­hal, which was paint­ed by a law stu­dent, hangs over the bench.