Compensate Saddam’s

Noted lawyer Parnel Campbell Q.C. has called on the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to reimburse the relatives of the late Carlisle “Saddam” Joseph of McKies Hill for his funeral expenses and pay them compensation for their loss on compassionate grounds.

The 30-year-old Joseph was gunned down in the Rose Place area of Kingstown on Saturday, October 21, 2006. At the time of his death, he was a key witness for the prosecution in the trial arising from the death of Brian “Free-I” Lewis and George “Nikki” Browne, who were both killed in a sea of bullets just one year earlier on October 8, 2005, also in Rose Place. That trial was set for the assizes of October 2006.{{more}}

Speaking on his “Law and You” TV programme on Monday, Campbell said that he was stunned when the Prime Minister, in parliament last week Thursday, reading parts of the Alex Lawrence letter, revealed that Lawrence had given the police information in the letter dated June 1, 2006, that two witnesses for the crown were going to be killed; then Joseph was indeed killed.



The Prime Minister also disclosed in his presentation that through Lawrence’s assistance, five cells phones were recovered in the prisons, and one of those phones is believed to be the cell phone from which a call was made from the prison, to give the order for the killing of the prosecution witness.

Campbell stated that when he had heard that a witness had been gunned down, as a lawyer practising in the justice system, he was alarmed.

The noted barrister continued, “In as much as this boy was killed just because he was a prosecution witness, killed before he could give evidence in a trial, and in as much as the family is of humble circumstances, could not the government assist the family by reimbursing them the cost of at least the expenses of burying the young man, and giving them at least some modest measure of compensation for the loss.”

Stating that he is not advocating that whenever a person is murdered that the government should step in and help, but “Where that person is murdered as the authorities suspect, just because, he was to be a witness in a murder case,” he felt it was appropriate and justified for the government to give the family some kind of monetary compensation. He continued “And to think that Lawrence had warned the authorities that this was to happen… but apparently was not taken seriously. … I don’t know how anyone in their right mind could possibly think that these are not national security matters.”