AG gets I’Akobi Report from Police
by Phillippe Aimey (www.nationnews.com)
GOVERNMENT has received a special report from the Royal Barbados Police Force regarding I’Akobi Maloney’s death.
But Attorney-General Freundel Stuart isn’t rushing to judgment on the former Exhibition winner’s death on June 17 at Landlock, St Lucy.
A justice committee formed to protest the police’s report, as well as the People’s Empowerment Party’s president David Comissiong, issued statements in July calling on the Commissioner of Police to suspend the officers until the investigation was complete.
“That is not normal procedure. You can only do that if the findings reveal that they would have acted improperly . . . if there is evidence to prove it. Mr Comissiong was not down there as far as I am aware, and none of the people who are shouting were down there,” Stuart told the DAILY NATION.
The Attorney-General revealed he had received an official report from the police and saw nothing questionable.
“I have a report in writing from the police and there is no recording of anything out of the ordinary. What I had done as the Attorney-General was to request that report, and I shared the contents of that report, first with the Prime Minister and then the Cabinet, but this matter will have to take its natural course.”
Stuart explained that in an unnatural death a Coroner’s Inquest must take place and if the court finds something wrong, the authorities would “take it from there”.
Last week, the Maloney family secured attorney Andrew Pilgrim after saying they were denied the courtesy of identifying the body at the scene in St Lucy, that they were not present at the autopsy and that a request to have an independent autopsy was denied.
They also queried the condition of Maloney’s bag following the autopsy report that cited the cause of death as “drowning”.
Police later countered by saying that they never said Maloney jumped with his bag and also denied having any physical contact with the engineer.
Stuart was unable to say when the start date of the inquest would be, and Barbados’ Coroner Magistrate Faith Marshall-Harris was not in the island when the DAILY NATION contacted her office.
Tags: Andrew Pilgrim, Attorney-General, autopsy, Cabinet, Commissioner of Police, Coroner, David Comissiong, drowning, Faith Marshall-Harris, Freundel Stuart, haversack, inquest, Justice Committee, Landlock, People's Empowerment Party, Prime Minister, report, Royal Barbados Police Force, suspend officers
May 28th, 2009 at 10:40 am
These are interesting articles. Thank you for taking the time to write them.