A national scandal.
That’s how Senior Counsel Israel Khan described the findings of a Police Complaints Authority (PCA) audit into the conduct of police officers tasked with investigating the death of Akiel Chambers.
The investigation, which began in 2018, involved a monitoring and auditing exercise.
Following a 20-month probe, the PCA found that evidence collected during the police investigation into Akiel’s murder is “no longer available” and officers involved in the investigation “cannot now be held to account” as they are either deceased or have retired from the T&T Police Service and hence “no disciplinary action, if warranted, may be taken at this juncture.”
PCA director David West felt that senior police officers should not have left the investigations in the hands of inexperienced junior officers.
“It’s an indictment against the police. For a case like this, they should have had their top detectives doing their investigations and maybe call in foreign experts to work behind the scene,” Khan said.
Khan said what happened to Chambers was nothing short of a “national scandal” and it leaves one to wonder if it was a “deliberate attempt to allow junior police officers to investigate the matter. Why? Indirectly it could be a cover-up.”
Chambers, 11, went missing at the home of businessman Charles James in Maraval on May 23, 1998, during a pool party.
The following day his body was fished out of the pool.
Khan feels Chambers was probably molested on the property where he died.
He said his personal view was that Chambers was not the child of someone of high status and was irrelevant.
Khan also agreed with West, stating the police should have drilled key people who were at the party and not play catch up in the 2004 Sherman McNichols’ inquest.
The autopsy found that Chambers had been subjected over a long period to repeated sexual intercourse through the anus.
Today marks 24 years since Chambers’ murder, which remains unsolved.
Khan said the DNA would have been most crucial in solving the case.
“The police got the DNA but they did not match it up with anyone.”
Although the country was not in a position to do DNA testing back then, Khan said swabs taken from Chambers’ body could have been sent abroad for testing.