RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Venezue­lan na­tion­al Darielvis Sara­bia, whose one-year-old ba­by was shot dead by the T&T Coast Guard last Feb­ru­ary, are call­ing on the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions to ini­ti­ate crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings or in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.

This is be­cause at­tor­ney Criston Williams, one of the fam­i­ly’s le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, be­lieves re­cent ev­i­dence points to a cov­er-up in the mat­ter.

“There is ev­i­dence of wit­ness tam­per­ing. There is ev­i­dence that wit­ness­es to the mat­ter were re­moved from T&T with­out be­ing in­ter­viewed. There is al­so a di­rect state­ment to TTCG that they have not done any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to that mat­ter,” Williams told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

In fact, in a let­ter to DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, Williams and oth­er at­tor­neys called on Gas­pard to force or ini­ti­ate some form of pos­i­tive ac­tion in the mat­ter for Sara­bia, in or­der to negate any in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion­al risk to T&T, which has al­ready faced calls from in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the UN refugee agency UN­HCR; UN hu­man rights of­fice (OHCHR); In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) and the UN Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF); for bet­ter pro­tec­tion for mi­grants.

If the DPP fails to ini­ti­ate pro­ceed­ings, the at­tor­neys re­quest­ed rea­sons as to why this can­not be done.

The let­ter stat­ed that to date, the Chief of De­fence Staff has not pro­vid­ed ac­cess to the doc­u­ments re­quest­ed, nor has an in­ves­ti­ga­tion been con­duct­ed in­to the killing.

“The de­por­ta­tion of the wit­ness­es men­tioned above, by the ser­vants and/or agents of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer, al­ludes to mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and may be ev­i­dence of di­rect and in­ten­tion­al in­ter­fer­ence with a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The at­tor­neys not­ed, “We are fear­ful that the ev­i­dence put for­ward in any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the killing of our client’s mi­nor child will be in­com­plete and ab­sent of facts in­te­gral to the mat­ter.”

Ba­by Yaelvis Sara­bia San­toyo was shot by the Coast Guard on Feb­ru­ary 5. Sara­bia was al­so shot dur­ing the in­ci­dent and was tak­en to the San­gre Grande Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where she un­der­went surgery.

Af­ter be­ing dis­charged, the moth­er was tak­en to the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion.

The ba­by was buried, fol­low­ing a ser­vice at the Church of the Nazarene, Robin­son Street, Ari­ma, but his moth­er was not ­al­lowed to at­tend.

Her el­der daugh­ter Dan­na San­tol­lo Sara­bia, who was al­so on board the ves­sel when it was in­ter­cept­ed by the Coast Guard and fired up­on, was re­leased in­to the care of her fa­ther, Yer­mis ­San­tol­lo, on Feb­ru­ary 9.

Ini­tial­ly, in a state­ment, the TTCG said the boat at­tempt­ed to ram in­to the Coast Guard ves­sel.

A video sub­se­quent­ly sur­faced show­ing the oc­cu­pants of the boat with hands raised be­fore shots were fired.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing the shoot­ing, Dr Ed­uar­do Stein, Joint Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of UN­HCR and IOM for Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants, ex­pressed sad­ness at the in­ci­dent say­ing, “We are deeply sad­dened by this tragedy and con­vey our heart­felt con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and loved ones who are griev­ing this loss. No­body should have to lose their lives in their search for safe­ty, pro­tec­tion and new op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

On Feb­ru­ary 11, the State de­port­ed 35 oth­er Venezue­lan mi­grants who were de­tained fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

Ef­forts to con­tact the TTCG for a com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.