Jensen La Vende

For­mer Com­mis­sion of En­quiry com­mis­sion­er in­to the deaths of four Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices (LM­CS) divers, Jerome Lynch KC, says the de­ci­sion tak­en by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard to ad­vise po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate Paria Fu­el is in keep­ing with the com­mis­sion’s find­ings.  

In a me­dia re­lease to­day, Lynch said while the re­port says cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter should be prof­fered against Paria Fu­el, he rec­og­nized that the ter­mi­nol­o­gy, used in the UK, is not in keep­ing with TT laws. 

Lynch added though that manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence, which ex­ists with­in the laws of the coun­try, en­com­pass­es the thresh­old need­ed for cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter. 

At the end of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry, Lynch and the com­mis­sion­ers rec­om­mend­ed that Paria be charged with “what is com­mon­ly known as cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.” 

The com­mis­sion’s find­ings al­so stat­ed that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence be­fore it to rec­om­mend any­one charged with an of­fence re­lat­ed to the divers’ deaths. 

In a me­dia re­lease last week, Gas­pard said the com­mis­sion’s find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions are not ev­i­dence and ad­vised Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Chrsi­to­pher to in­ves­ti­gate. He said that the on­ly pos­si­ble crim­i­nal of­fence com­mit­ted is manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence. 

“Un­like in the Unit­ed King­dom, there has been no statu­to­ry in­ter­ven­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go to cre­ate an of­fence known as cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter” Gas­pard said adding that he ad­vised the top cop to have the deaths of the men in­ves­ti­gat­ed to de­ter­mine if any­one or any en­ti­ty may be cul­pa­ble of manslaugh­ter by gross neg­li­gence. 

This com­mis­sion was ini­ti­at­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the trag­ic deaths of Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Yusuf Hen­ry. The men died af­ter they were sucked in­to a Paria un­der­wa­ter pipeline on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, and be­came trapped for a few days. One man, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived the in­ci­dent.