T&T: Diplomat’s driver found dead in car trunk

(T&T GUARDIAN) — The body of a work­er em­ployed at the Em­bassy of El Sal­vador was yes­ter­day found in an agri­cul­tur­al area in Cunu­pia.

The em­ploy­ee was iden­ti­fied as Jose Tito Ri­vas, 53. He was the of­fi­cial dri­ver of El Sal­vador Am­bas­sador Ray­mun­do Ernesto Ro­driquez Di­az.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, short­ly be­fore mid­day of­fi­cers of the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion, act­ing up­on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, went to an area off War­ren Road where they found a blue Toy­ota For­tuner, li­censed PCM 321.

A par­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, who re­port­ed on the scene short­ly there­after, car­ried out fur­ther checks where they found the body wrapped in a sheet in the trunk of the ve­hi­cle.

The body was lat­er pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied as that of Ri­vas.

The T&T Guardian was told by in­ves­ti­ga­tors that Ri­vas was last seen leav­ing the Queen’s Hall com­pound in Port-of-Spain at about 9 pm on Thurs­day evening.

Ri­vas had re­port­ed­ly took the Am­bas­sador to a diplo­mat­ic event—Brazil­ian Na­tion­al Day cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by the Em­bassy of Brazil—as his fi­nal tour of du­ty that day.

Ri­vas was even­tu­al­ly re­port­ed miss­ing by his wife when he failed to re­turn to his home in Val­sayn lat­er that night.

A diplo­mat at an­oth­er em­bassy, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, ex­pressed sad­ness and con­cern at the in­ci­dent. He al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to of­fi­cials at the El Sal­vador Em­bassy.