SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Is­rael Khan, SC, be­lieves the re­port in­to the deaths of PNM MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren should not be laid in Par­lia­ment but in­stead for­ward­ed to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to de­ter­mine whether a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice is war­rant­ed and if any in­di­vid­u­als were in­volved in a cov­er-up re­lat­ing to their deaths.

He said if the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­cludes that peo­ple have been cul­pa­ble, charges should be laid against the wrong­do­er/s.

Khan’s com­ment fol­lowed re­marks by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who said he be­lieved the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port in­to the dead­ly fire that claimed the lives of Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren last De­cem­ber was shield­ing those re­spon­si­ble, but that le­gal ad­vice had led to the de­ci­sion not to re­lease it pub­licly.

Row­ley had said the find­ings of that re­port left him deeply dis­sat­is­fied.

“The re­port that came from the per­sons who we put to look in­to it was quite un­sat­is­fac­to­ry. To me, it was more of a cov­er­ing for who was re­spon­si­ble.” Row­ley added that crit­i­cal ques­tions were nev­er an­swered.

Khan said there were many ques­tions to be asked re­gard­ing Row­ley’s state­ment.

He stat­ed that the re­port would have been pre­sent­ed to the Cab­i­net, and le­gal ad­vice pro­vid­ed. “The in­di­ca­tion he made, they were cov­er­ing.”

Khan said if ev­i­dence from the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed there was mis­con­duct and peo­ple failed to do what they should have rea­son­ably done to pro­tect those peo­ple, “they could be open to a crim­i­nal charge of in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter, which car­ries a penal­ty of life im­pris­on­ment”.

Sec­ond­ly, he said, charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­spir­a­cy to pro­mote the cause of pub­lic jus­tice could al­so be laid.

“Crim­i­nal of­fences might have been com­mit­ted. Peo­ple have died.”

Last De­cem­ber 16, Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren, Xi­anne, 25, and Je­si­ah, six, died in a fire at their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home. An au­top­sy re­port stat­ed that the trio died from smoke in­hala­tion. Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band, Daniel Ju­lian, and four oth­er oc­cu­pants in the house man­aged to es­cape.

“So there is mas­sive cor­rup­tion tak­ing place in re­la­tion to cov­er­ing the in­com­pe­tence or ei­ther the don’t-care at­ti­tude of peo­ple. If Row­ley has ad­mit­ted now, there seems to be a cov­er-up to pro­tect those peo­ple. If there is ev­i­dence that they ought to have act­ed in a cer­tain way and they failed to do so, then peo­ple are open to charges,” Khan said.

He said the po­lice would have to in­ves­ti­gate if there was ac­tion or non-ac­tion by those who tried to cov­er up.

Khan said it made no sense to call for a com­mis­sion of in­quiry in­to the deaths.

Fire of­fi­cers ex­on­er­at­ed

Ear­li­er this week, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der con­firmed that the re­port found no ev­i­dence of foul play and ex­on­er­at­ed re­spond­ing fire of­fi­cers, stat­ing that Cab­i­net de­cid­ed against mak­ing it pub­lic, cit­ing con­cerns for the griev­ing fam­i­ly.

Alexan­der’s com­ments came af­ter Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s fam­i­ly and hus­band, Daniel Ju­lian, called for full dis­clo­sure of the of­fi­cial in­ves­tiga­tive re­port of the trio’s deaths last Sun­day.

On Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cab­i­net would meet to con­sid­er whether the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port should be laid in Par­lia­ment.

Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Keone Guy said the re­port should be made pub­lic in the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy and restor­ing pub­lic trust, not to as­sign blame.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view last Thurs­day, Ju­lian told the Sun­day Guardian he re­quest­ed that the fam­i­ly see the re­port first, be­fore the Gov­ern­ment makes it pub­lic or not.

“We don’t know what is in the re­port. We have no idea what is the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The re­port was hand­ed over to then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on Jan­u­ary 10. From there, it was for­ward­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chaired by Row­ley.

Ju­lian said he had asked for the re­port, but at that time, it was not com­plet­ed.

No one con­tact­ed him af­ter that.

He wants the Gov­ern­ment to give him a copy of the re­port be­fore they de­cide to lay it in Par­lia­ment.

Hus­band: I am not in a good place

Still griev­ing over his wife’s and chil­dren’s deaths, Ju­lian said, “All I can tell you is that my life will nev­er be the same. And even with clo­sure, my life is not go­ing to be the same. My wife was my soul­mate as far as I am con­cerned. I am liv­ing with­out my soul­mate. I am not in a good place.”

Since the deaths, Ju­lian said, he suf­fers from in­som­nia. The cou­ple had been mar­ried for 24 years. From that union, they pro­duced four chil­dren. They al­so had an adopt­ed daugh­ter.

Ju­lian said his chil­dren have been cop­ing in dif­fer­ent ways.

“They have been man­ag­ing fair­ly well. But of course, we have our mo­ments. It will nev­er stop. We speak about her, but it is very dif­fi­cult.”

He said he had no idea what caused the fire.

“All the re­ports that I give all have the ex­act same sto­ry. My sto­ry has nev­er changed.”

Ques­tions were sent via What­sApp to for­mer prime min­is­ters Stu­art Young and Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Thurs­day, but they did not re­spond.

Re­peat­ed calls to Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son’s cell­phone went unan­swered.

Re­port based on facts and sci­en­tif­ic re­search–in­ves­ti­gat­ing team lead

On De­cem­ber 20, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced the for­ma­tion of a three-man com­mit­tee led by for­mer chief fire of­fi­cer Roo­sevelt Bruce, chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty Curt Cadette, and at­tor­ney Ashtie Ma­habir. They were tasked with ex­am­in­ing the events sur­round­ing the fire, in ad­di­tion to re­view­ing the per­for­mance of the Ari­ma and Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tions.

The com­mit­tee’s man­date al­so in­clud­ed a thor­ough re­view of the Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse time, the avail­abil­i­ty of wa­ter re­sources and an as­sess­ment of the ar­rival and de­par­ture logs to en­sure time­ly and ad­e­quate ac­tion was tak­en.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was to ad­dress pub­lic con­cerns about con­flict­ing re­ports sur­round­ing the cause of the fire and the re­sponse.

The Fire Ser­vice said the sta­tion’s fire truck was un­avail­able, hav­ing been de­ployed to an in­dus­tri­al fire. The Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion was sub­se­quent­ly con­tact­ed, but its truck was al­so busy, re­spond­ing to an­oth­er house fire.

Yes­ter­day, Bruce was asked to re­spond to Row­ley’s cov­er-up state­ment.

He was al­so asked if in­ves­ti­ga­tors ac­cept­ed mis­lead­ing or sani­tised in­for­ma­tion or if those pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion with­held key facts.

“The re­port was done based on facts and sci­en­tif­ic re­search. I have no fur­ther com­ment to make,” Bruce said.