KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers has un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demned the heinous and bru­tal mur­der of promi­nent at­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor, de­scrib­ing it as a grave in­jus­tice and an af­front to the sanc­ti­ty of hu­man life.

Hec­tor, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as the le­gal di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, was fa­tal­ly shot on Tues­day night af­ter he left the Stan­more Av­enue Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church in Port-of-Spain, even as the State of Emer­gency in ef­fect.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, while Hec­tor, 43, was walk­ing to his car at the in­ter­sec­tion of Stan­more Av­enue and Al­bion Street, a black SUV and a Nis­san B15 sedan ap­proached him, and the oc­cu­pants fired mul­ti­ple gun­shots. Hec­tor was an at­tor­ney for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and was said to have been a pros­e­cu­tor in a case against a known gang leader.

In a strong­ly word­ed state­ment, the as­sem­bly ex­tend­ed its deep­est con­do­lences to Hec­tor’s fam­i­ly, friends, and loved ones dur­ing what it de­scribed as a “time of unimag­in­able grief.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion em­pha­sised that the pain of this trag­ic loss is shared by all who val­ue jus­tice, hu­man dig­ni­ty, and the rule of law.

Call­ing for swift ac­tion, the as­sem­bly urged the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to un­der­take a “thor­ough, trans­par­ent, and ex­pe­di­tious in­ves­ti­ga­tion” to ap­pre­hend and pros­e­cute those re­spon­si­ble.

“This ab­hor­rent act of vi­o­lence strikes at the heart of the prin­ci­ples we, as of­fi­cers of the court, are sworn to up­hold,” the state­ment said.

The as­sem­bly al­so called on the au­thor­i­ties to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all cit­i­zens, stress­ing that no fam­i­ly or com­mu­ni­ty should en­dure such a dev­as­tat­ing loss again.

Reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to jus­tice and ac­count­abil­i­ty, the as­sem­bly vowed to con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for a so­ci­ety where the rule of law pre­vails, and all in­di­vid­u­als are af­ford­ed the pro­tec­tion they de­serve.

Hec­tor’s mur­der, which oc­curred just hours af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher as­sured the pub­lic of re­sults un­der the new­ly de­clared State of Emer­gency, has sparked wide­spread con­cern and grief with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty and the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

Mean­while, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan says if re­ports that Hec­tor’s mur­der was a gang-or­dained as­sas­si­na­tion, it could cre­ate a fright­en­ing land­scape for younger pros­e­cu­tors.

“This is a fright­en­ing de­vel­op­ment,” Khan said.

“Young pros­e­cu­tors will be­gin to shy away from pros­e­cut­ing, and the State will then have to re­cruit for­eign pros­e­cu­tors for high-pro­file cas­es or those in­volv­ing gang­sters.”

He added, “If his mur­der is linked to a hit by some gang, or gang­sters—and I do not know, and I can­not say that—but if it is linked, the next thing that would hap­pen in this coun­try is that they are go­ing to kill a judge. Be­cause what is hap­pen­ing is that the State is mov­ing to­wards judge-alone tri­als, and they will put the judges’ lives and their fam­i­lies’ lives in per­il.”

Khan al­so ex­pressed con­cern about whether Hec­tor’s mur­der could be con­nect­ed to his role at the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and urged cau­tion in gov­ern­ment ac­tions. He not­ed that young lawyers in the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ Of­fice have ex­pressed fear of pros­e­cut­ing gang-re­lat­ed cas­es, cit­ing the in­creas­ing vi­o­lence among gang­sters.

Re­call­ing the bru­tal killing of his col­league Dana See­ta­hal SC, in 2014, Khan stressed that the court mat­ter against her al­leged mur­der­ers is still pend­ing and urged the State to ex­pe­dite that case.

Re­flect­ing on his own ex­pe­ri­ences, Khan re­called lead­ing a pros­e­cu­tion team, in­clud­ing See­ta­hal and Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC, against 12 peo­ple ac­cused of kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. While eight of the ac­cused were ac­quit­ted due to rea­son­able doubt, the case con­tin­ues against two oth­ers. Khan said be­fore See­ta­hal’s mur­der, the team had se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions. On the night of her mur­der, po­lice sur­round­ed his house and placed him, Pe­ter­son, and oth­ers in pro­tec­tive cus­tody, with the State pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion for two years.

“We re­alised then that her as­sas­si­na­tion had noth­ing to do with the case we were pros­e­cut­ing, so we had to be care­ful. I was con­cerned. My fam­i­ly was con­cerned, but we de­cid­ed we could not drop out of the case be­cause we could not sig­nal to the coun­try and young lawyers that as soon as some­thing en­dan­gers our lives, we back out,” he said.

Hec­tor’s mur­der came a day af­ter Gov­ern­ment de­clared a State of Emer­gency (SoE) aimed at rid­ding the coun­try of gangs and the high-pow­ered weapons they have, which con­tributed to ram­pant crime in 2024. It al­so oc­curred just two hours af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher held a news con­fer­ence, where she “guar­an­teed” re­sults from the SoE.

Khan, how­ev­er, ex­pressed scep­ti­cism about the SoE’s ef­fec­tive­ness, ar­gu­ing it will not de­ter gang­sters.

“These young men seem not to be afraid of death,” he said, re­it­er­at­ing his be­lief that Gov­ern­ment on­ly tipped off gang­sters about their op­er­a­tions be­fore im­ple­ment­ing the SoE reg­u­la­tions and op­er­a­tions.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T al­so promised to send a re­lease on the is­sue when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day but none was forth­com­ing up to press time.