Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice are close to com­plet­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the deaths of four divers who be­came trapped in­side a Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny pipeline over two years ago.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin said the in­ves­ti­ga­tors met on Tues­day and may meet again lat­er this week, de­pend­ing on whether they re­ceive the doc­u­ments they need to com­plete the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

She added that the of­fi­cers have been re­ceiv­ing ad­vice from a po­lice le­gal of­fi­cer through­out their probe.

Mar­tin was re­luc­tant to say how soon the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be com­plet­ed. She added that the of­fi­cers would be seek­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, which may lead to them mak­ing fur­ther en­quiries af­ter se­cur­ing the re­quest­ed doc­u­ments.

Last week, the DPP, in a state­ment, said the com­mis­sion’s find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions were not ev­i­dence and ad­vised Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to in­ves­ti­gate whether a per­son or en­ti­ty should be crim­i­nal­ly charged in con­nec­tion with the divers’ deaths. Gas­pard said the on­ly pos­si­ble crim­i­nal of­fence is manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence, as cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter, as sug­gest­ed by Com­mis­sion chair­man Jerome Lynch, SC, does not ex­ist in lo­cal law.

“Un­like in the Unit­ed King­dom, there has been no statu­to­ry in­ter­ven­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go to cre­ate an of­fence known as cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter,” Gas­pard said then.

On Tues­day, the for­mer com­mis­sion­er in the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria Div­ing Tragedy is­sued a state­ment agree­ing with Gas­pard on the pos­si­ble charge.

Lynch said his ad­vice was to charge Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny with the men’s deaths and he used the term “cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter” as that is the term used in the Unit­ed King­dom. He stat­ed that while the words were not in­scribed in the T&T’s law­books, there is prece­dence of a com­pa­ny/or­gan­i­sa­tion be­ing charged with manslaugh­ter. Lynch added, though, that manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence, which ex­ists with­in the laws of the coun­try, en­com­pass­es the thresh­old need­ed for cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.

Lynch over­saw the en­quiry in­to the cir­cum­stances which led to the deaths of LM­CS dri­vers Rishi Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Yusuf Hen­ry. The men died af­ter they were sucked in­to a Paria un­der­wa­ter pipeline on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, and be­came trapped for a few days. A fifth man, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived the in­ci­dent.