The fi­nal re­port on the sec­ond au­top­sy on Bri­an Smith, who rel­a­tives say was beat­en by sol­diers and dumped in the sea two weeks ago, has been post­poned to to­day.

Ac­cord­ing to rel­a­tives, the pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon des Vi­gnes asked for ad­di­tion­al time to re­view the slides con­tain­ing tis­sue sam­ples tak­en from Smith's lungs be­fore com­plet­ing the re­port.

Rel­a­tives al­so said Smith was last seen drink­ing al­co­hol with sol­diers at­tached to the En­gi­neer Bat­tal­ion when they got in­to an ar­gu­ment over an il­le­gal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion on No­vem­ber 20.

Rel­a­tives claim the sol­diers beat Smith with a shov­el and af­ter he com­plained to neigh­bours.

They claim he was hit in the head and thrown in­to the sea.

His body was found float­ing around 7 am on No­vem­ber 22, by pris­ons of­fi­cers on their way to work at Car­rera Is­land Prison.

A first au­top­sy, done by pathol­o­gist Es­t­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris, stat­ed Smith drowned.

Rel­a­tives staged a fiery protest along the West­ern Main Road, Care­nage, the fol­low­ing day, prompt­ing of­fi­cers of the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Smith's death.

That in­ves­ti­ga­tion has now been tak­en over by homi­cide de­tec­tives.

The nine sol­diers, at­tached to the En­gi­neer Bat­tal­ion, were as­signed to re­pair hous­es dam­aged by a low-fly­ing he­li­copter as­signed to the Air Guard ear­ly last month.

The reg­i­ment had sug­gest­ed a third au­top­sy be done on Smith, who was buried last Fri­day, af­ter it was re­port­ed that the sec­ond showed he died of blunt force trau­ma to the head.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Mc­don­ald-bur­ris stands by her find­ings

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, pathol­o­gist Es­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris, de­fend­ed the find­ings of the au­top­sy she per­formed on Bri­an Smith on No­vem­ber 23.

The state­ment, re­leased by her at­tor­ney Christlyn Moore, re­ferred to pub­lic com­ments sur­round­ing her find­ings that the cause of Smith's death was drown­ing.

"The tenor of this com­men­tary and the al­leged re­sults of a sub­se­quent au­top­sy com­mis­sioned at the re­quest of in­ter­est­ed par­ties are of great con­cern. As a foren­sic pathol­o­gist in the em­ploy­ment of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I have no vest­ed in­ter­est in the find­ings of any au­top­sy. My com­mit­ment al­ways is to the in­tegri­ty of the in­sti­tu­tion, the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al con­duct, and the preser­va­tion of my pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion. In this re­gard, I am con­fi­dent that ma­ture pro­fes­sion­al con­sid­er­a­tion and ap­pro­pri­ate un­bi­ased skill and care were brought to bear on the au­top­sy I per­formed on the body of Mr Smith."

"It is im­por­tant to note that while I ren­dered an opin­ion as to the cause of death, no opin­ion has been ren­dered on the man­ner of death. In any un­nat­ur­al death, the man­ner of death may be homi­cide, sui­cide, ac­ci­dent or be un­de­ter­mined. A de­ter­mi­na­tion as to the man­ner of death of­ten in­volves fur­ther foren­sic and patho­log­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tions as well as po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"It is re­gret­table that the pur­port­ed con­tents of a sec­ond au­top­sy have made the rounds in the me­dia even be­fore they have been ten­dered to the par­ties who com­mis­sioned it, no doubt be­cause it's al­leged find­ings ap­pear to con­flict with mine, and fit in­to a nar­ra­tive al­ready be­ing traf­ficked. Nev­er­the­less, and while pro­fes­sion­als may dis­agree, I stand by my un­bi­ased con­clu­sion as to the find­ings and cause of death in this case."