An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The mi­nor al­leged to have been pi­lot­ing one of the two boats in­volved in last week­end’s dead­ly col­li­sion off the coast of Ch­aguara­mas has been re­ceiv­ing death threats along with his fam­i­ly and oth­er peo­ple on board the ves­sel at the time.

The threats, some of which have been is­sued via so­cial me­dia posts as well as com­mu­ni­cat­ed di­rect­ly to the fam­i­ly, have been re­port­ed to the po­lice.

Se­nior Coun­sel Faris Al-Rawi, who rep­re­sents the mi­nor in ques­tion and his fam­i­ly, de­nied claims cir­cu­lat­ing the pub­lic do­main that the fam­i­ly who lives at Fed­er­a­tion Park had fled the coun­try fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent in which six peo­ple had lost their lives. In­stead, he said they were co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with the var­i­ous agen­cies in­ves­ti­gat­ing the tragedy, as they want­ed a prop­er in­quiry to take place at the re­spec­tive tri­bunals.

He al­so dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that the boat be­long­ing to his clients had been cap­tained by any­one oth­er than the au­tho­rised adult at the time of the in­ci­dent, and that his client’s boat had been re­turned to them.

“I wish to con­firm to you that no child was in­volved in man­ag­ing this craft at all, at no point in the day, at no point in­volved in this in­ci­dent.”

He added that on the day in ques­tion, “At 6.21 pm, an adult was the mas­ter and cap­tain of that ves­sel.”

“A very ex­pe­ri­enced gen­tle­man who has sub­ject­ed him­self to as­sis­tance and en­quiry by the TTPS, and that no mi­nor what­so­ev­er was in­volved in the pi­lot­ing of that craft at any point in time.”

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at Al­tus Court, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, the for­mer at­tor­ney said the fam­i­ly had al­ready sub­mit­ted sev­er­al state­ments to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) along with de­vices and records con­tain­ing GPS co­or­di­nates and oth­er crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion key to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The boat in ques­tion re­mains in the pos­ses­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard at Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased, he said his clients were ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s brief­ing as, “There is a sig­nif­i­cant amount of con­ver­sa­tion go­ing on and I can tell you that there are very se­ri­ous death threats that are pre­vail­ing right now which have been made, and which have been re­port­ed to the TTPS.”

Al-Rawi de­clined to say if the fam­i­ly had been as­signed po­lice pro­tec­tion or if they had em­ployed pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty.

He al­so re­fused to re­veal how the fam­i­ly’s dai­ly lives had been dis­rupt­ed since the in­ci­dent and if the threats had forced them to change rou­tines and reg­i­mens.

Re­fer­ring to the so­cial me­dia con­ver­sa­tion re­lat­ed to the in­ci­dent, which he de­scribed as, “Very skewed but un­der­stand­ably so,” Al-Rawi said that, in ad­di­tion to the TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Mar­itime Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Fi­nance was al­so con­duct­ing its own probe.

He said the law al­lowed for ad­di­tion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der the Coro­ner’s Act and the Ship­ping Act, but these were yet to be de­cid­ed up­on and ini­ti­at­ed if deemed nec­es­sary.

He did, how­ev­er, de­scribe the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion thus far as ful­some and pro­fes­sion­al.

Al-Rawi said, “I can con­firm to you that my clients have giv­en mul­ti­ple state­ments to the TTPS and that they have de­liv­ered GPS in­for­ma­tion and GPS de­vices which will no doubt, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly speak to speed, dis­tance, di­rec­tion, minute-by-minute, and mo­ment-by-mo­ment in­volved in this tragedy.”

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi ex­pressed con­cern as to how 29 peo­ple had been ac­com­mo­dat­ed on one ves­sel—but he said that would be an­swered in due time.

Al-Rawi said it was im­por­tant that those re­spon­si­ble be held to ac­count, and it was to this end that his clients were co­op­er­at­ing and forth­com­ing with in­for­ma­tion.

He added that he was not wor­ried about con­cerns ques­tion­ing his pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al in­tegri­ty, af­ter pic­tures of him pos­ing with the al­leged teenag­er sur­faced on­line.

He ex­plained that as a for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, he had tak­en pho­tographs with hun­dreds of peo­ple, which was not a rea­son to re­cuse him­self or de­cline cas­es when ap­proached.

He as­sured that hav­ing been in­volved in the le­gal pro­fes­sion for over 30 years, he re­mained com­mit­ted to dis­charg­ing his oblig­a­tions in com­pli­ance with the law and the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act.

He said, “The moth­ers on board that ves­sel are weep­ing and griev­ing for the moth­ers who have lost their chil­dren. This is a shared tragedy.”