Rishard Khan

The at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing 28 Venezue­lan mi­grants on­board the ves­sel when the TT Coast Guard al­leged­ly killed a mi­nor be­ing brought in­to the coun­try on Sat­ur­day have sent a let­ter to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ask­ing that they not be de­port­ed.

The let­ter sent from the of­fice of Criston J. Williams & Co. out­lined sev­er­al rea­sons why their clients should not be re­moved from the coun­try.

First­ly, it said their clients in­struct­ed them to file a claim for refugee sta­tus to the lo­cal arm of the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR).

"We in­vite you in the ex­er­cise of your dis­cre­tion to grant them a Min­is­ter’s per­mit as you are so em­pow­ered by Sec­tion 10 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of their refugee claim," it said.

It al­so said the clients are all wit­ness­es to the in­ci­dent which is now be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

"On this ba­sis, their tes­ti­mo­ny and ev­i­dence are es­sen­tial to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, and we have in­clud­ed the same for your pre­lim­i­nary con­sid­er­a­tion," it said.

"It is pru­dent to ob­tain an un­der­tak­ing from you to en­sure our clients are not de­port­ed to the Bo­li­vian Re­pub­lic of Venezuela dur­ing the in­ves­tiga­tive stages. Any such re­moval or in­ter­fer­ence would ob­struct the con­duct of an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and con­sti­tute re­foule­ment."

It said this is es­pe­cial­ly cru­cial as their clients' ac­counts of the in­ci­dent dif­fer from the re­port giv­en by lo­cal of­fi­cials.

The let­ter al­so said the clients are "sub­ject­ed to psy­cho­log­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion and threat(s)" at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port where they are cur­rent­ly be­ing de­tained. It, there­fore, asked that they be trans­ferred out of the fa­cil­i­ty im­me­di­ate­ly.

"Should our in­struc­tions be ac­cu­rate, this is in­im­i­cal to your man­date to pro­tect vic­tims and wit­ness­es. It may be wise to have our clients im­me­di­ate­ly trans­ferred. This sta­tus quo must be im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dressed be­cause the said guards are mem­bers of the body ac­cused of caus­ing the de­ceased’s death on 6th Feb­ru­ary 2022.," it said.

The let­ter al­so called for the mi­nors in de­ten­tion to be re­leased.

"The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go has rat­i­fied, in­cor­po­rat­ed and is a sig­na­to­ry to the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”). There­fore, the Min­istry is man­dat­ed to up­hold the wel­fare and best in­ter­est prin­ci­ple en­shrined in the Con­ven­tion. We be­lieve that it is with­in the best in­ter­est to fa­cil­i­tate the im­me­di­ate re­lease of our mi­nor Clients held at the He­li­port Fa­cil­i­ty."

One-year-old Yaelvis San­toyo and his moth­er Darielvis Sara­bia were part of a group of mi­grants which in­clud­ed 17 adults and ten chil­dren that board­ed a pirogue in Tu­cu­pi­ta, bound for T&T on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 5. They were in­ter­cept­ed by the T&T Coast Guard who opened fire af­ter the ves­sel al­leged­ly at­tempt­ed to ram in­to them. San­toya was killed in the process and Sara­bia was in­jured. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched in­to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds. De­spite this, the in­ci­dent has gar­nered in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia cov­er­age and pub­lic out­cry in both T&T and Venezuela.