Geisha Kow­lessar

A ti­tan, a gi­ant among men.This was how At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan de­scribed slain le­gal lu­mi­nary Dana See­ta­hal SC yes­ter­day.Ex­press­ing his shock at the brazen mur­der, Ram­lo­gan said in a state­ment, "Her care­free na­ture was matched by her sense of pa­tri­o­tism. She was a pub­lic-spir­it­ed lawyer who served her coun­try in many dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ties, in­clud­ing as­sis­tant so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al, lec­tur­er, mag­is­trate, pros­e­cu­tor, in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, news­pa­per colum­nist and au­thor."

Ram­lo­gan said See­ta­hal was tru­ly un­bi­ased and had an in­de­pen­dent voice that helped shape pub­lic opin­ion."The wis­dom of her coun­sel pro­vid­ed guid­ance to the na­tion on crit­i­cal is­sues. Dana had a pierc­ing in­tel­lect and a won­der­ful sense of hu­mour.

"She was an ex­cel­lent ad­vo­cate in the courts and the con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al who was nev­er afraid of hard work. She was mar­ried to her work and ded­i­cat­ed her en­tire life to the le­gal pro­fes­sion. Her prag­mat­ic ap­proach to life was re­flect­ed in her news­pa­per columns, where she was able to sim­pli­fy com­plex le­gal mat­ters so that the av­er­age man could un­der­stand the is­sues." Ram­lo­gan said he had lost "a dear friend and col­league."

He said he last spoke to See­ta­hal about her col­umn in the Sat­ur­day Ex­press. (See­ta­hal was al­so a for­mer T&T Guardian colum­nist)."It pro­vid­ed sup­port for me in the present con­tro­ver­sy over the let­ter from the so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al. She was one of the few who came out in my de­fence and sup­port­ed my po­si­tion."It is a pow­er­ful re­minder of the strength of her in­de­pen­dence, as she was not afraid to voice her opin­ion even if it meant swim­ming against the tide–she stood up for her be­liefs," the AG added.

He said de­spite op­pos­ing opin­ions at times, their mu­tu­al re­spect and friend­ship were al­ways main­tained.Ram­lo­gan said the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al had al­so lost crit­i­cal sup­port with See­ta­hal's killing, as she as­sist­ed him with im­por­tant and sen­si­tive work on a num­ber of leg­isla­tive mea­sures to help with the fight against crime and im­prove the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

"She was in­stru­men­tal in the new law to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries and changes to the DNA Act. Last week, she helped us or­gan­ise a work­shop on plea bar­gain­ing with ex­perts from the Unit­ed States," he said."Her death will leave a void in so­ci­ety and the le­gal pro­fes­sion. These are big shoes to fill. She was one of a kind."On why he be­lieved some­one want­ed See­ta­hal dead, Ram­lo­gan said he pre­ferred not to spec­u­late."I am so shocked about this tragedy that I haven't even be­gun to think that far," Ram­lo­gan said.