PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, November 14, The lawyer who had previously represented a state witness was shot and killed in Diego Martin, west of here on Sunday night, and is blaming “institutional failure” for his death.
“My position is basically, his death is ultimately an institutional failure in Trinidad and Tobago,” attorney Criston Williams said on a radio program here on Monday.
“Why do I call it an institutional failure? It is simple. Think about it. So we have a young man who is a state witness in a homicide of a police officer, who also, to the best of my knowledge, wishes to give …to the TTPS (Trinidad and Tobago Police Service) information about corrupt police officers and this person I do believe would have asked to be placed under witness protection.
“This is on the basis that he did not receive witness protection, but from my clear understanding, he wished to be in witness protection. So witness protection would have taken him out of his environment where he is in and does other things to change his life”.
Williams told radio listeners that while his former client, Jehlano Romney, 29, was not offered witness protection and left in the same environment, “sooner or later he must die.
“Now the question to be asked is what will this new show for any other person….who wishes to come forward with information against the TTPS,” he said, noting that the person may think he is rejected by the mechanism society to make a change.
Police have confirmed that Romney, the main witness in the case in which police constable Clarence Gilkes was killed earlier this year, had been shot and killed at a house in Diego Martin. An unidentified woman was also shot and injured.
Gilkes was among a party of 12 police officers who had responded to a report that men were seen brandishing guns along Rich Plain Road in Diego Martin on April 22 this year. Police initially claimed there was an exchange of gunfire after armed persons on the roadway shot at them.
Romney was singled out as the person of interest in the shooting, but he maintained his innocence.
He was released with no charges laid against him, and in August, two police officers were jointly charged with shooting at Romney with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
One of the police officers has since been remanded into custody and charged with the murder of Gilkes.
Meanwhile, Acting Commissioner of Police McDonald Jacob has strongly condemned what the police have described as “the brazen and heinous killing” of a Special Reserve Police (SRP) Constable Kyle Lashley in Tobago on Sunday night.
Police said that Lashley, who was last attached to Crown Point Police Station, was in the company of friends when two gunmen alighted from a vehicle, relieved Lashley of a gold chain, and fired several shots at him before fleeing.
Lashley was taken to the Scarborough General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Jacob said, “all resources of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and National Security will be brought to bear in the investigations into the killing of the young officer, and the island will be scoured until the perpetrators of the crime are brought to justice.
“He says at this time a contingent of officers from the Inter-Agency Task Force and personnel from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force is in the Tobago Division assisting officers there in the apprehension of the offenders in the shortest possible time,” the police statement added.
So far this year, more than 530 people have been murdered in Trinidad and Tobago.
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