More than three months after BDF soldier Pablo Kinch was killed while on duty, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams is calling for the investigation to be completed.
Speaking at the Barbados Labour Party’s Christ Church East annual general meeting yesterday, Abrahams said justice needed to be served and Kinch’s family deserved closure.
Kinch, a former Lance Corporal, died on April 6 on the compound of the District ‘A’ Police Station after being shot in the chest. Reports are that he was shot by another BDF soldier.
He was laid to rest on Friday.
Abrahams said while he didn’t want to prejudice the investigation, answers were needed.
“Pablo lost his life in circumstances that have not yet been explained. I’m treading real carefully because I don’t want to prejudice an investigation or anything, but at some point in time an investigation has to come to an end and a family needs to have answers. I was at his funeral and I heard what that 21-year-old boy meant to his family…
“…There are a lot more questions than answers and that needs to not be the way how we do things in Barbados. I am going to do what I can from my position to bring some closure to that family,” Abrahams said.
“I do not know what evidence the police has. I cannot tell them if charges should be brought against anybody. I don’t know, I was not there. But what I can say and what I can say publicly is that this needs to be brought to a close. The investigation needs to be completed and the family needs to get a report of what transpired. Until that happens what happened to them is an open wound that will not close.”
Two weeks ago Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith gave the assurance that police were still actively probing Kinch’s shooting death.
At the time he said investigations were at a delicate stage.
And while Abrahams made it abundantly clear he was not telling the police how to do their job or if to charge anyone in relation to the incident, he said the truth had to be revealed.
“A lot of things we have to do and we have to change in Barbados. Justice has to mean justice. There must be no section of our community that is immune from justice. There must be nobody beyond reproach or beyond investigation…
“I am not trying to send any message to those who have control of that investigation, other than at some point in time it needs to come to an end and a definitive position has to be taken that allows the family to get closure. I am not saying to charge anybody, I do not know what happened and that is the problem. The problem is that how many months later we do not know what has happened and that cannot be the standard we hold ourselves to in investigations,” Abrahams contended.(RB)
