JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

DPP cautions media on pre trial publicity

by

20150803

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, has is­sued a warn­ing to the me­dia over pre tri­al pub­lic­i­ty in the case of 11 men charged with mur­der of for­mer spe­cial State pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC.

Gas­pard gave the warn­ing yes­ter­day in a press re­lease is­sued ex­act­ly one week af­ter the group's lawyer Criston J Williams made a plea for his (Gas­pard's) in­ter­ven­tion on the is­sue dur­ing their first court ap­pear­ance be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court.

Gas­pard's ad­vice to the me­dia al­so comes af­ter both Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley spoke ex­ten­sive­ly on the case at their re­spec­tive po­lit­i­cal meet­ings last week.

Stat­ing that the ac­cused men are pre­sumed in­no­cent un­til proven guilty, Gas­pard said: "The re­cent ap­pear­ance in court of those charged with Ms See­ta­hal's mur­der and the height­en­ing of the pub­lic's cu­rios­i­ty, the pass­ing ref­er­ences to this mat­ter on the po­lit­i­cal hus­tings and the po­lit­i­cal sea­son, all make for a dan­ger­ous med­ley and ac­cord­ing­ly, I have a le­gal du­ty to re­mind you that you are not to pub­lish any ma­te­r­i­al which has the po­ten­tial to prej­u­dice ei­ther the State's rights or the rights of the ac­cused per­sons to a fair tri­al.

Even as he warned that any in­frac­tions to his warn­ing may lead to con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings for of­fend­ing me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers and or­gan­i­sa­tions, Gas­pard ac­knowl­edged that the me­dia has a ma­jor role to play in en­sur­ing the smooth run­ning of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

"As al­ways, I give this di­rec­tive be­ing mind­ful of the fine bal­ance that must be struck among the con­sid­er­a­tions which in­form a fair tri­al, the rights of the State and the in­valu­able de­mo­c­ra­t­ic func­tion that the press per­form, es­pe­cial­ly with­in a de­sire­able sys­tem of open jus­tice," Gas­pard said.

Re­put­ed gang leader Ra­jaee Ali, his broth­ers Hamid and Ish­mael and eight mem­bers of Ali's fam­i­ly mosque in Cara­po, Ari­ma-broth­ers De­vaughn and Stephan Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Gareth Wise­man, Kevin Parkin­son, Le­ston Gon­za­les and Ro­get Bouch­er have all be charged with mur­der­ing See­ta­hal on May 4, last year.

The group will reap­pear be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar on Au­gust 24.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored