Gail Alexan­der ??

Slain Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, who un­der­took the State's ac­tion on Ja­maat al Mus­limeen prop­er­ties, had re­fused se­cu­ri­ty of­fered to her, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has said.Speak­ing in Tues­day's Sen­ate trib­utes to See­ta­hal, Ram­lo­gan said she was the spe­cial state pros­e­cu­tor who rep­re­sent­ed the peo­ple in the bat­tle with the Mus­limeen for just rec­om­pense aris­ing out of the 1990 coup at­tempt.

He said when he im­ple­ment­ed the court or­der re­gard­ing the sale of the Ja­maat prop­er­ties there were few lawyers pre­pared to take the se­cu­ri­ty risks at per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lev­els and she was one of the few who re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly.Ram­lo­gan added: "I asked her about it, not­ing there were se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and if she took it on she would re­quire se­cu­ri­ty."She said: 'No, I am my own se­cu­ri­ty, AG, I don't want any­body. I'll deal with this mat­ter.' That was the na­ture and essence of the per­son."

Say­ing he was heart­bro­ken at her death, Ram­lo­gan de­scribed See­ta­hal as "a fall­en daugh­ter of our soil whose pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ments, as well as her per­son­al life, have been a shin­ing ex­am­ple of all that is good in T&T...a woman of un­ques­tion­able char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty."She was a woman whom I re­spect­ed and ad­mired, a role mod­el and a source of im­mea­sur­able in­spi­ra­tion for those whose lives she had touched."

He said the sight of her client, so­ca star Machel Mon­tano, weep­ing at the spot where she was mur­dered, showed the type of re­la­tion­ship she had with the peo­ple she rep­re­sent­ed.He said See­ta­hal walked many roads in her life, en­joy­ing a le­gal ca­reer span­ning some 35 years, with "a unique sense of pub­lic ser­vice, ground­ed in her inim­itable Trin­bag­on­ian style which en­deared her to every­one, even peo­ple who had nev­er met her feel this loss and grieve for her."

Ram­lo­gan said his min­istry had lost a crit­i­cal sup­port as See­ta­hal was as­sist­ing him with im­por­tant and sen­si­tive work on a num­ber of leg­isla­tive mea­sures to help with the fight against crime and im­prov­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.He added: "She was in­stru­men­tal in the new law to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries and changes to the DNA Act. Just over one week ago, she helped us or­gan­ise a work­shop on plea bar­gain­ing with ex­perts from the US."

He said See­ta­hal was com­mit­ted to that idea as it would have bro­ken up the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem's log­jam.He added: "She was fear­less in ex­press­ing her opin­ion in a ra­tio­nal, rea­son­able and non-po­lit­i­cal man­ner."Guid­ed by her per­cep­tions of what was right or just, she nev­er took the path of least re­sis­tance or sup­port­ed a view sim­ply be­cause it was the pop­u­lar one."She wasn't afraid to stand alone, if need be, for what she be­lieved in. As an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, she as­sumed a proac­tive and lead­er­ship role.

"T&T is poor­er to­day for the pass­ing of Dana See­ta­hal, these are ex­treme­ly big shoes to fill. She was one of a kind," he said.

Oth­er sen­ate trib­utes

Two oth­er sen­a­tors have called on T&T to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of See­ta­hal by stand­ing de­fi­ant in the face of crim­i­nal­i­ty.At Tues­day's Sen­ate trib­utes, PNM sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said See­ta­hal's mur­der last Sun­day in­volved a trig­ger point­ed at not on­ly at See­ta­hal but al­so every one in T&T.He said it was a mes­sage sent by cow­ards to those look­ing af­ter democ­ra­cy and moral­i­ty to be afraid and to T&T that there were no bound­aries and no one to pro­tect them.

Al-Rawi said See­ta­hal's foot­prints and her lega­cy were not to ac­cept that act of cow­ardice or ac­cept that evil tri­umphed over good.He said cit­i­zens should be en­cour­aged by her lega­cy and ex­am­ple and de­fy any at­tempt to ru­in democ­ra­cy and should al­so re­dou­ble re­solve to stand up and be count­ed as she did.He added if there was a sin­gle ex­pres­sion of uni­ty, it was in the life See­ta­hal led. He said at times when they were on op­po­site sides of cas­es, be­hind her wit was "al­ways a beau­ti­ful smile."

"I en­cour­age us all, and Gov­ern­ment es­pe­cial­ly, to work to­geth­er to bring about the much need­ed so­lu­tion to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment which seeks to per­suade us they will pre­vail...but they will nev­er pre­vail," Al-Rawi added.In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Rolph Bal­go­b­in said: "She was a diminu­tive gi­ant, ex­tra­or­di­nary in­tel­lect with quick wit and acer­bic tongue.

"A woman of the law and of peace. T&T may not yet ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate what it has lost. But her pass­ing has made every sin­gle cit­i­zen sig­nif­i­cant­ly poor­er. It's un­like­ly we will see the likes such as she again."The most fit­ting trib­ute we can give her is not to shrink in fear or re­treat in the face of the ghast­ly hor­rors. We must find the strength and re­solve to reded­i­cate our­selves to the cause for which she gave the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice, T&T's ad­vance­ment."