Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he be­lieves the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port in­to the dead­ly fire that took the life of MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren last De­cem­ber was shield­ing those re­spon­si­ble, but le­gal ad­vice led to the de­ci­sion not to re­lease it pub­licly.

Row­ley made the com­ment af­ter the fu­ner­al of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira yes­ter­day.

Row­ley 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,” he said, adding that crit­i­cal ques­tions were nev­er an­swered.

He said the re­port was with­held af­ter he re­ceived le­gal guid­ance.

“It wasn’t made pub­lic be­cause there’s some le­gal view that it should not be, and I was guid­ed by that,” he said, adding that he re­mained un­hap­py with the out­come.

Mean­while, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the de­ci­sion to re­lease the re­port was not his. He said his pre­de­ces­sor, Fitzger­ald Hinds, had al­ready tabled the re­port at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil be­fore he as­sumed of­fice.

“So, it wasn’t my de­ci­sion to dis­close or not dis­close the re­port,” Gon­za­les said, adding that, in his view, there was noth­ing in the re­port that should have pre­vent­ed its re­lease.

The coun­try woke up to tragedy on De­cem­ber 16, 2024, when Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren died in an ear­ly morn­ing fire at their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home.

Her daugh­ter Xi­anne Ju­lian, 25, and son Je­si­ah Ju­lian, six, al­so per­ished. The blaze start­ed at 5.30 am and rapid­ly en­gulfed the house, trap­ping three of the eight oc­cu­pants who were re­port­ed­ly asleep.

While the cause of the fire has not been de­ter­mined, the T&T Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse time came un­der scruti­ny, since Mor­ris-Ju­lian lived less than two blocks away from the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion. The fire ten­ders were at an­oth­er fire at the time.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s sis­ter, Jozanne, told Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day the fam­i­ly wants full dis­clo­sure.

“Read­ing the re­port is im­por­tant to us to fig­ure out what hap­pened, you know, what didn’t hap­pen,” she said, adding that it could help pre­vent sim­i­lar tragedies.

She said the fam­i­ly knows there was no crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing, but their con­cern was the re­sponse.

“What our con­cern is, is what ac­tu­al­ly tran­spired in terms of get­ting as­sis­tance to the house,” she said, not­ing the home was steps from the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion and that neigh­bours re­peat­ed­ly called for help.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has since con­firmed the re­port found no ev­i­dence of foul play and ex­on­er­at­ed re­spond­ing fire of­fi­cers, but said Cab­i­net de­cid­ed against mak­ing it pub­lic, cit­ing con­cern for the griev­ing fam­i­ly.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les yes­ter­day said the wish­es of the fam­i­ly must take pri­or­i­ty.

“When fam­i­ly mem­bers make that re­quest, you sup­port it,” she said.

“I think of my­self in a po­si­tion like that, know­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done. Their re­quest should be ho­n­oured.”