The PPP Govt just can’t win, can it?? Not even earn a draw!! It gotta be ground into the dust!! Your Eyewitness is referring to the charges for murder that have been filed against the Captain and two other officers of the sunken ferry!! Now it was made clear that these charges were recommended by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) – which was deliberately constitutionally made an independent office so as to prevent interference from any source, including (or maybe particularly after the Burnham excesses!) the Executive!!
But here it is – accusations are flying fast and furious from the Opposition and their camp followers that the Government is creating a diversion to take away from their alleged culpability in causing the ship to go down!! Maybe if the President and his entire Cabinet had been air-dropped as the ship went down to go down with it, you think the accusations would’ve been lessened? Naaah!! Your Eyewitness doesn’t think so. They woulda been blamed for adding to the weight!!
Now two legal worthies from the Opposition camp – Mr “34 is less than 32” Man and a younger one who is straining mightily to get some recognition – have immediately weighed in to declare UNEQUIVOCALLY that the charge is fatally flawed!! Why?? Well, according to them, a charge of murder demands that there must be a PREMEDITATED INTENT to kill – which they assert is absent with the Barima sinking!!  Now in normal circumstances, your Eyewitness would’ve figured they knew what they were talking about. But then he thought, “Whoa!!” This isn’t the DPP’s first rodeo – she’s been around the (murder) block and some!!
So he hit his search button on his trusted browser! And found that there is a murder charge based on “extreme indifference to human life” – that is, to knowingly engaging in conduct so extraordinarily dangerous that the law treats it as equivalent to intentional murder!! Applying that standard to the MV Barima disaster, prosecutors gonna have to prove something like: the Captain knew the vessel was dangerously overloaded or otherwise fatally unsafe; he appreciated that death was highly likely rather than merely possible; and despite that knowledge, he deliberately proceeded!!
By his own words after he was arrested, it’s clear he knowingly sailed an unseaworthy vessel, intentionally ignored flooding, and even became high on ganja!! The DPP’s role is simply to determine whether there’s sufficient evidence to prosecute – NOT whether guilt has been established beyond reasonable doubt!!  Whether the murder charges ultimately survive committal proceedings – or result in convictions – will depend on whether the prosecution can prove more than incompetence, negligence, or even gross recklessness!!
Gotta be conduct amounting to an extreme or depraved indifference to human life!!

…exoneration
In the wake of the Trinis and Frenchies – who’d generously volunteered to dive and reconnoitre the state of the MV Barima under the Atlantic – saying conditions were too “dangerous” for further operations – the Government said they were canvassing relatives of the dead on whether they wanted the ship to be raised or left where it is – as a monument to the deceased. They’ve received “SEVERAL” proposals for the raising.
But then up stepped Sanction Man to announce – in front of the cameras, of course! –  that he’d be willing to fund the salvage of the vessel!! He’d already been in touch with his “international partners”, who said the job could be done!!! Well, with all the experience OFAC says he’s got with smuggling gold out of Guyana, your Eyewitness is pretty sure Sanction Man does have the marine connections!!
Anyhow, if the decision were up to your Eyewitness, he’d call Sanction Man’s bluff!!  It’s pretty clear he figures the Government wants to blank him!!

…that orange jumpsuit
Sanction Man’s thought he got a reprieve when the CCJ paused his extradition hearing in the Magistrate’s Court. Sadly, for him, it merely stretched out – his swinging in the wind as he contemplates life in an orange jumpsuit!!

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