RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Promis­ing that le­gal ac­tion will be filed be­fore the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the trag­ic deaths of four LM­CS divers while work­ing on a Paria pipeline, at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har says he aims to re­store dig­ni­ty to af­fect­ed fam­i­lies who were ill-treat­ed while their loved ones' strug­gled for breath in­side a Paria-owned pipeline two years ago.

Speak­ing on the Morn­ing Brew on Mon­day, Ra­mad­har said he will be writ­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­quest­ing a copy of the con­clud­ed Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (COE) re­port.

Be­yond seek­ing fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion, Ra­mad­har not­ed the fam­i­lies' pur­suit of crim­i­nal charges aims for ac­count­abil­i­ty against those who aban­doned the men in the pipeline, hin­der­ing any res­cue at­tempts on that fate­ful day-Feb­ru­ary 25th, 2022."

The at­tor­ney con­demned the on­go­ing dis­re­spect, par­tic­u­lar­ly ev­i­dent dur­ing the COE pro­ceed­ings, where cer­tain re­spon­si­ble par­ties from Paria de­fend­ed their ac­tions, deem­ing aban­don­ing the four men in the pipelines as jus­ti­fi­able.

Say­ing he was not trou­bled by the ev­i­dence which came out in the En­quiry, Ra­mad­har said he was in­ter­est­ed in the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the chair­man Jerome Lynch KC in the COE re­port, which was sub­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo last Thurs­day.

The Pres­i­dent's com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vi­sor Cheryl Lala con­firmed that the re­port was giv­en to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on the same day.

"In terms of ev­i­dence, I want to in­di­cate that it is our in­ten­tion to file le­gal ac­tions. We were pre­pared to do that ear­li­er this year but hav­ing re­gard to the time­li­ness and avail­abil­i­ty of the COE re­port, we held our hand," Ra­mad­har ex­plained.

He added: "Cer­tain­ly we will be ready to pro­ceed, more so with that COE Re­port in hand."

Not­ing that the rec­om­men­da­tions of the re­port are in­te­gral to how the dif­fer­ent par­ties deal with each oth­er, Ra­mad­har said pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters had been sent to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and LM­CS.

"Of course, Paria re­spond­ed ef­fec­tive­ly say­ing they are not li­able but hav­ing re­gard to ev­i­dence that came out of the Com­mis­sion, I will find it un­palat­able for them to hold on to that po­si­tion," Ra­mad­har said.

How­ev­er, if Paria in­sists it is not cul­pa­ble, the gov­ern­ment can is­sue an ex-gra­tia pay­ment un­til the court makes a fi­nal or­der, Ra­mad­har point­ed out.

"One of the things we wish to avoid is to pre­vent some lev­el of clo­sure. We have fam­i­lies in dire need who can­not make ends meet," Ra­mad­har said.

Dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Christ­mas, Ra­mad­har men­tioned that one of the fam­i­lies or­ga­nized a bar­be­cue event to gath­er funds.

Each of the divers—Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar, and Yusuf Hen­ry—was the pri­ma­ry provider for their re­spec­tive house­holds. Ra­mad­har is ad­vo­cat­ing for the chil­dren and fam­i­lies of the Kur­bans, Na­gas­sar, and Hen­ry.

The men were killed on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, af­ter dis­ap­pear­ing in­to a pipeline dur­ing an un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance ex­er­cise. A fifth div­er, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived.

LM­CS com­pa­ny, a sub-con­trac­tor of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, had hired the divers to ex­e­cute main­te­nance works on Sealine 36 sit­u­at­ed be­tween Berth 5 and 6 when the tragedy oc­curred.

Fol­low­ing the pub­lic out­cry, a Com­mis­sion of Equiry was held to de­ter­mine who was re­spon­si­ble.