An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

De­spite ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment over her treat­ment by po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Ka­ia Sealy say she has noth­ing to hide and will con­tin­ue to co­op­er­ate with au­thor­i­ties in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Jan­u­ary po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing that re­sult­ed in her boyfriend’s death.

Speak­ing with re­porters at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port around 2 am yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Fay­ola Sandy said she was sur­prised to learn Sealy had been tak­en in­to cus­tody af­ter ar­riv­ing on a flight from Pana­ma at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.45 am.

Sandy de­scribed the po­lice han­dling of the mat­ter as dis­ap­point­ing, not­ing that of­fi­cers had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed a will­ing­ness to al­low Sealy to seek med­ical treat­ment be­fore pre­sent­ing her­self at the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion for a vir­tu­al court ap­pear­ance.

Giv­en that as­sur­ance, Sandy said she was tak­en aback when Sealy was ar­rest­ed im­me­di­ate­ly up­on ar­rival and es­cort­ed through an al­ter­na­tive ex­it at the air­port. As a re­sult, Sealy’s moth­er, Avanel Hen­dricks, was left to clear cus­toms alone be­fore meet­ing Sandy out­side and in­form­ing her of the sit­u­a­tion.

Sandy said it was con­cern­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not in­form her of their in­ten­tion to ar­rest Sealy. She point­ed out that Sealy is cur­rent­ly wheel­chair-bound and in no con­di­tion to flee the ju­ris­dic­tion.

Sealy had been re­ceiv­ing med­ical and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive treat­ment in the Unit­ed States fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary 20 shoot­ing, which claimed the life of her boyfriend, Joshua Sama­roo.

Af­ter her ar­rest, Sealy was ini­tial­ly tak­en to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion, re­port­ed­ly be­cause it was bet­ter equipped to ac­com­mo­date her cur­rent phys­i­cal con­di­tion. She was lat­er trans­ferred to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion, where she ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore a Mas­ter of the Court.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with her client, Sandy told re­porters Sealy was “hold­ing on very well.”

While not­ing that Sealy has been left with a se­vere med­ical con­di­tion that will af­fect her fu­ture, Sandy added, “Giv­en the cir­cum­stances, she has been hold­ing up.” How­ev­er, she al­so said that de­spite con­cerns sur­round­ing Sealy’s ar­rest, po­lice of­fi­cers had been gen­er­al­ly am­i­ca­ble and co­op­er­a­tive.

Sama­roo was killed af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers opened fire on the car he and Sealy were in af­ter it crashed in St Au­gus­tine fol­low­ing a high-speed chase that be­gan in Mal­oney. There was a pub­lic out­cry af­ter CCTV footage showed Sama­roo with his hands out­side the car, ap­par­ent­ly sur­ren­der­ing to of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions sub­se­quent­ly or­dered that Sealy be charged in Sama­roo’s death af­ter foren­sic and oth­er analy­ses in­di­cat­ed that some­one in­side the ve­hi­cle had fired at po­lice.