JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Tara­dath Singh, who sur­vived a mur­der at­tempt out­side his Ch­agua­nas home last month, was shot dead on Tues­day, af­ter warn­ings from friends to avoid pre­dictable move­ments and be more cau­tious about his sur­round­ings.

Singh’s friend and col­league John­ny Abra­ham, who now heads the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia he had ad­vised Singh to lie low and take pre­cau­tions.

“I ad­vised him to be very cau­tious for the next month and a half or two months and change up your rou­tine. You don’t have to go to the gym. Be care­ful how you’re com­ing home; if any­body’s fol­low­ing you, make sure you know your sur­round­ings and so on,” Abra­ham said.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials said Singh was shot around 6.25 pm on Tues­day. Pre­lim­i­nary re­ports in­di­cate he had just left a near­by gym and was walk­ing to his ve­hi­cle when gun­men opened fire. He re­port­ed­ly ran a short dis­tance be­fore col­laps­ing on the com­pound of the Ha­ji Shafik Ra­haman Ed­u­ca­tion Com­plex off AS­JA Av­enue, Char­lieville.

A for­mer client, speak­ing at the scene yes­ter­day, said he re­gret­ted not en­cour­ag­ing Singh to change his rou­tine af­ter the first at­tack. He said he on­ly learnt his at­tor­ney had been killed af­ter see­ing po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty on AS­JA Av­enue and mak­ing in­quiries.

At a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, DCP Suzette Mar­tin de­clined to dis­cuss a pos­si­ble mo­tive, say­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was at a sen­si­tive stage. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the ear­li­er at­tempt on Singh’s life, she could not say whether he was of­fered pro­tec­tion.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, how­ev­er, con­firmed Singh was of­fered pro­tec­tion but de­clined it.

The killing sent shock­waves through the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty, with at­tor­ney Bhi­mal Ma­haraj writ­ing to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ex­press­ing con­cern over the safe­ty of le­gal pro­fes­sion­als.

“This trag­ic in­ci­dent has brought in­to sharp fo­cus the safe­ty of mem­bers of the le­gal pro­fes­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at­tor­neys en­gaged in crim­i­nal prac­tice who, in the course of rep­re­sent­ing their clients, may be ex­posed to threats, in­tim­i­da­tion or oth­er risks to their per­son­al safe­ty. At­tor­neys must be able to dis­charge their pro­fes­sion­al du­ties in­de­pen­dent­ly and fear­less­ly. The pro­tec­tion of the le­gal pro­fes­sion is not sim­ply a mat­ter con­cern­ing at­tor­neys; it is fun­da­men­tal to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the pub­lic’s con­fi­dence in the le­gal sys­tem,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj called for a ded­i­cat­ed point of con­tact with­in the TTPS to al­low at­tor­neys to re­port threats di­rect­ly. As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers pres­i­dent Saira Lakhan al­so called for a swift re­sponse.

“Every per­son is en­ti­tled to safe­ty and the pro­tec­tion of the law. At­tor­neys must be able to dis­charge their pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­out fear of vi­o­lence or in­tim­i­da­tion. With­out pre­judg­ing the mo­tive for this killing, the con­cern it has gen­er­at­ed with­in the le­gal pro­fes­sion must be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly,” Lakhan said.

Cen­tral As­so­ci­a­tion of Le­gal Prac­ti­tion­ers chair­man Kiel Tak­lals­ingh said lawyers across Cen­tral Trinidad were sad­dened by Singh’s death and called for those re­spon­si­ble to be brought to jus­tice. Tak­lals­ingh al­so sup­port­ed en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for lawyers who face el­e­vat­ed risks be­cause of the mat­ters they han­dle, in­clud­ing favourable con­sid­er­a­tion for Firearm User’s Li­cences (FUL) and oth­er pro­tec­tive mea­sures.

Abra­ham, how­ev­er, ar­gued that pos­sess­ing a firearm is on­ly ef­fec­tive if the own­er is pre­pared and trained to use it. He not­ed that Singh, who held a FUL, al­leged­ly had his firearm in the back seat of his BMW dur­ing the Sep­tem­ber at­tack and was not car­ry­ing it when he was killed.

“Peo­ple are clam­our­ing for guns, but when they get the gun, you’re pro­tect­ing your­self. Some peo­ple have firearms in this coun­try, and they nev­er go on the range to shoot.”

He said crim­i­nals are far less will­ing to tar­get peo­ple who can de­fend them­selves, say­ing they are afraid of peo­ple shoot­ing at them.

Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment from Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lynette See­baran-Suite but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.