Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, De­vesh Ma­haraj, has laud­ed the com­mit­ment and ex­per­tise of the staff at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, and gave an un­der­tak­ing that his min­istry will con­tin­ue to sup­port the work of the Cen­tre.

Min­is­ter Ma­haraj, ac­com­pa­nied by Trudy Lewis, Act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Jus­tice, vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty on Wednes­day (May 28, 2025). The min­istry’s del­e­ga­tion met with Der­rick Sankar, Di­rec­tor of the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and oth­er of­fi­cials at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment from the min­istry, the del­e­ga­tion en­gaged “in sub­stan­tive dis­cus­sions” with Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre team dur­ing the vis­it.

Min­is­ter Ma­haraj was giv­en a first­hand view of the vi­tal work car­ried out by the Cen­tre’s pro­fes­sion­als, whose sci­en­tif­ic analy­ses un­der­pin the crim­i­nal jus­tice process.

The min­is­ter al­so spoke di­rect­ly with staff and ex­plored sev­er­al key ar­eas of foren­sic work.

Among the sec­tions he toured were the In­stru­men­ta­tion Lab, the Tox­i­col­o­gy Lab, the Chem­istry Lab, the Bi­ol­o­gy/DNA Lab, the Hand­writ­ing and Coun­ter­feit Unit, and the Fir­ing Range. He al­so ex­pe­ri­enced the In­te­grat­ed Bal­lis­tic Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Sys­tem (IBIS) in ac­tion.

“The ex­per­tise and com­mit­ment of the Cen­tre’s per­son­nel are deeply ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” the Min­is­ter stat­ed.

“The tour un­der­scored the com­plex­i­ty of foren­sic sci­ence, from DNA pro­fil­ing and tox­i­col­o­gy to bal­lis­tics and dig­i­tal ev­i­dence,” the min­istry’s re­lease said. “Min­is­ter Ma­haraj recog­nised the de­ci­sive role these dis­ci­plines play in crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions and court out­comes.”

It added: “The Min­istry of Jus­tice re­mains firm­ly com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and its crit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tion to build­ing a safe and just so­ci­ety.”