The Ex­ec­u­tive of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) has ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Ad­vo­cate Ak­ili Charles on "his un­for­tu­nate and un­time­ly pass­ing".

"Ak­ili Charles cham­pi­oned a cause whilst in­car­cer­at­ed and con­tin­ued to cham­pi­on that cause well be­yond his ac­quit­tal when there was no longer any per­son­al ben­e­fit to him af­ter hav­ing lost 9 years of his life in­car­cer­at­ed be­fore his even­tu­al dis­charge," the CBA said in a me­dia state­ment.

It not­ed that be­yond his ad­vo­ca­cy for pre­tri­al bail for charges of cap­i­tal mur­der, Charles sought to ad­vo­cate for much-need­ed changes in the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem now plagued with en­dem­ic de­lay, which con­tin­ues to re­sult in cit­i­zens be­ing held with­out tri­als for pe­ri­ods far in ex­cess of 10 years, de­lays which it said un­der­mine the rule of law "and ren­ders otiose our con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions and far­ci­cal, the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence".

The CBA not­ed that Charles al­so ad­vo­cat­ed against gang re­cruit­ment in his own area, a cause which is be­lieved to have been the rea­son for his un­time­ly demise.

"The Ex­ec­u­tive of the Crim­i­nal Bar on the oc­ca­sion of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, rec­og­nizes the ef­forts of Ak­ili Charles who fought to save the younger gen­er­a­tion in his com­mu­ni­ty from be­com­ing part of the gang cul­ture which in the last 20 years has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed ur­ban Afro Trinida­di­an youth. It is hoped that the un­time­ly death of Ak­ili Charles would not be in vain, as such we call on the rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to en­gage in a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort and take im­me­di­ate steps to con­tin­ue the work of res­cu­ing the ur­ban youth from the now per­va­sive gang cul­ture."

The CBA said it stands ready and com­mit­ted to lend­ing its as­sis­tance to the cause of erad­i­cat­ing gang cul­ture as well as in work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion, Po­lice and Ju­di­cia­ry with a view to restor­ing nor­mal­cy to the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem.

SEE AL­SO: Ex-ac­cused in nov­el bail ap­pli­ca­tion for mur­der killed while lim­ing