RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria Div­ing tragedy was laid in Par­lia­ment, At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har re­newed his call for a $5 mil­lion ex-gra­tia pay­ment to be made to the fam­i­lies of the divers.

He al­so called for crim­i­nal charges to be laid against Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Lim­it­ed's en­tire In­ci­dent Re­sponse Team who failed to save the divers on Feb­ru­ary 25th 2022, as they strug­gled for breath in­side a 36-inch pipeline.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence held at his of­fice on Mon­day, Ra­mad­har sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to file lit­i­ga­tion, not­ing that apart from charges of cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter, fur­ther crim­i­nal charges should be laid against Paria's ex­ec­u­tives.

Ra­mad­har said the find­ings of the COE showed the reck­less­ness of Collin Piper, Paria's Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er who re­strict­ed a res­cue at­tempt of the LM­CS Ltd divers- - Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, Rishi Nages­sar, and Yusuf Hen­ry, all of whom died in­side the pipeline dur­ing un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance works on Sealine 36.

Ra­mad­har con­tend­ed that Piper and his team showed "crim­i­nal li­a­bil­i­ty" when they failed to res­cue the four divers, even af­ter sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram made it out of the pipeline.

Ra­mad­har said each of the divers' fam­i­lies should get at least a $ 5 mil­lion pay­out from Paria, fol­low­ing which dis­cus­sions will be held to de­ter­mine whether lit­i­ga­tion will pro­ceed. He al­so said the fam­i­ly should be com­pen­sat­ed for the emo­tion­al trau­ma, dis­re­spect, and pain they suf­fered aris­ing out of the hor­rif­ic or­deal.

"Up to to­day, no­body from Paria ever gave them an apol­o­gy," he said.

Ra­mad­har al­so called for the Paria ex­ec­u­tives to be re­moved from their posts as the ev­i­dence showed that "they act­ed with reck­less­ness and in­com­pe­tence."

Ra­mad­har al­so said he be­lieved not all the ev­i­dence was un­earthed by the COE.

Say­ing he was griev­ed by the in­ci­dent, Ra­mad­har said the Paria ex­ec­u­tives should have re­moved them­selves from their posts, based on their con­science.

Say­ing his in­ten­tion was not to hurt any­one, Ra­mad­har not­ed that the en­tire episode on Feb­ru­ary 25 was "a may­hem of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion."

"Why was it that mem­bers of the Paria In­ci­dent Re­sponse Team did not de­cide what had to be done un­til days lat­er? Why did they not mount a res­cue even though high­ly qual­i­fied divers were will­ing to res­cue these men?" Ra­mad­har ques­tioned.

He al­so said two pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters had been sent to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing be­fore and shock­ing­ly, the com­pa­ny had de­nied li­a­bil­i­ty.

If there is no ex-gra­tia pay­ment, Ra­mad­har said both LM­CS and Paria would be sued joint­ly. LM­CS had been sub­con­tract­ed by Paria to ex­e­cute the un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance of the pipeline.

Ra­mad­har ex­plained that it was up to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to de­ter­mine what crim­i­nal charges could be laid against the Paria of­fi­cials. He al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed the Com­mis­sion­ers as well as Ramesh Lawrence-Ma­haraj SC for their work which pro­vid­ed dis­tress­ing ev­i­dence of that ter­ri­ble day when the divers per­ished.