Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer at­tor­ney in the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion’s of­fice Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al, is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate risk as­sess­ment and se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to en­sure the safe­ty of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors.

The call comes at the Law As­so­ci­a­tion called for state at­tor­neys to be giv­en pro­tec­tion fol­low­ing the mur­der of spe­cial state pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor.

The 43-year-old fa­ther of two was shot in the chest as he left the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist (SDA) Church, Stan­more Av­enue, Queen’s Park West on Wednes­day night. Po­lice said the gun­man shot Hec­tor as he made his way to his ve­hi­cle. He was tak­en to the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died.

In a me­dia re­lease to­day, Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said state pros­e­cu­tors play an in­te­gral part in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. She added that hav­ing com­pe­tent, ef­fec­tive and im­par­tial staff at the DPP’s of­fice “with­out fear or favour,” strength­ens the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and by ex­ten­sion the rule of law.

“It is there­fore es­sen­tial that a com­pre­hen­sive risk as­sess­ment be un­der­tak­en to de­ter­mine what are the short-, medi­um- and long-term mea­sures need­ed to of­fer greater pro­tec­tion to the of­fice as a whole, and to in­di­vid­ual pros­e­cu­tors who are deemed to be at a high­er risk due to spe­cif­ic as­sign­ments. More­over, a reg­u­lar sys­tem of re­view and eval­u­a­tion of col­lec­tive and in­di­vid­ual risks should be un­der­tak­en by a com­pe­tent au­thor­i­ty who ought to be re­ceiv­ing and an­a­lyz­ing in­tel­li­gence gath­ered which may re­late to such threats.”

She added that the DPP’s of­fice, due to the na­ture of the work and the risks in­volved and the com­pen­sa­tion, be­lieved not com­men­su­rate with the per­son­al sac­ri­fices re­quired, is al­ready plagued by high staff turnover. Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said with­out a func­tion­ing DPP of­fice, “the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will col­lapse.”

“A threat as­sess­ment to­geth­er with the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion to mit­i­gate against in­creased risk should be done as a mat­ter of pro­ce­dure when mat­ters con­nect­ed to per­sons who are known af­fil­i­ates and op­er­a­tives with­in gangs op­er­at­ing in TT are as­signed to in­di­vid­ual at­tor­neys. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, im­proved se­cu­ri­ty at the of­fices and court fa­cil­i­ties should be con­sid­ered, as at a min­i­mum, pros­e­cu­tors should feel safe in their place of work. In some cas­es, se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures should ex­tend to the homes and fam­i­lies of spe­cif­ic pros­e­cu­tors who are deemed to be at greater risk.”

Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said if the fears of the pros­e­cu­tors, who will be meet­ing with DPP Roger Gas­pard to­day on the mat­ter of their safe­ty, are to be ad­dressed, then im­me­di­ate ac­tion is need­ed.

“With hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars be­ing spent on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, our state pros­e­cu­tors can­not be left to fend for them­selves whilst we ex­pect them to per­form their du­ties as pro­fes­sion­als. The fight against crime re­quires the op­ti­mal use of re­sources and en­sur­ing that those who car­ry the bur­den of con­vict­ing crim­i­nals are pro­tect­ed is of crit­i­cal im­por­tance and ought to be giv­en pri­or­i­ty. I am call­ing on the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Of­fice of the AG the TTPS and all as­so­ci­at­ed in­tel­li­gence agen­cies to give this mat­ter ur­gent at­ten­tion.”