AM­BI­KA JA­GAS­SARS­INGH

Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed does not want rel­a­tives of the four de­ceased divers in the Paria div­ing tragedy to tes­ti­fy be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry set up to in­ves­ti­gate the dead­ly ac­ci­dent.

The com­pa­ny, through its at­tor­ney, se­nior coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son raised an ob­jec­tion at the start of the Com­mis­sion’s hear­ing on Mon­day (Jan­u­ary 9, 2023) morn­ing.

Three fam­i­ly mem­bers of the men are sched­uled to take the stand on Mon­day af­ter­noon, in­clud­ing the wid­ow of div­er Rishi Na­gas­sar, Vanes­sa Kussie, as well as the moth­er of div­er Kaz­im Ali Jr, Dr Cather­ine Ali and his wid­ow Jamie Man­odath-Ali.

Pe­ter­son raised his ob­jec­tion af­ter the Com­mis­sion’s chair­man, King’s Coun­sel, Jerome Lynch gave his run­down of the day’s ac­tiv­i­ties.

Be­fore Pe­ter­son’s ob­jec­tion Lynch said it would be re­miss of the Com­mis­sion to pre­vent the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims from speak­ing of the tragedy.

“We are very mind­ful of the fact that there are fam­i­lies left be­hind who are ob­vi­ous­ly di­rect­ly in­ter­est­ed in the out­come of this en­quiry...It would be wrong to sti­fle any of them from say­ing what they want to say...the fact that they have been deeply af­fect­ed by this is some­thing which this com­mis­sion feels is ap­pro­pri­ate for them to be able to voice them­selves rather than on a piece of pa­per which gets lost in the mire of tens of thou­sands of pages that have been sup­plied to this Com­mis­sion,” Lynch said.

Pe­ter­son coun­tered this, say­ing that the state­ments the fam­i­ly may pro­vide will not be in line with the Com­mis­sion’s pur­pose. 

“I could find no rel­e­vance with re­spect to as­sist­ing this Com­mis­sion with re­spect to what cause the in­ci­dent or the man­age­ment of it right af­ter. I can't find any pro­ba­tive val­ue in that ev­i­dence with re­spect to the terms of ref­er­ence of this com­mis­sion.”

“I am not un­mind­ful of what the fam­i­lies ex­pe­ri­enced and I’m sure it will be ad­e­quate for them to in­di­cate their feel­ings and the im­pact of it on them but with re­spect to these stric­tures of the terms of ref­er­ence of this Com­mis­sion and I find dif­fi­cul­ty in plac­ing that ev­i­dence in the terms of ref­er­ence. My sub­mis­sion is that it is ir­rel­e­vant and of no pro­ba­tive val­ue to as­sist this com­mis­sion and its work but the on­ly thing I could find is it may be prej­u­di­cial in ef­fect against my re­spect­ful clients,” Pe­ter­son added. 

Pe­ter­son al­so asked that the fam­i­ly mem­bers writ­ten state­ments be re­moved from the Com­mis­sion on the whole, since they were ir­rel­e­vant in his opin­ion.

Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive, at­tor­ney Asif Ho­sein-Shah, op­posed Pe­ter­son’s ob­jec­tion and asked that the state­ments be uti­lized.

The chair­man said he will make a de­ci­sion af­ter the Com­mis­sion’s mid-morn­ing break. Lynch said he would await any state­ment from at­tor­ney for sev­er­al of the vic­tims, Prakash Ra­mad­har be­fore mak­ing his de­ci­sion.