Charles: Why Anita family had to wait five months?

Naparima MP Rodney Charles has asked why after two years of promises regarding the Forensic Science Centre why the family of Anita Mohammed had to wait five months for a positive DNA identification of her remains.

He had raised the issue as an urgent question in the House on Friday.

Acting National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said DNA legislation was passed but only recently regulations were completed, passed through the House of Representatives and was now before the Senate.

"We are constantly making every effort to improve the legislative framework. As to the circumstances the Anita Mohammed case raised the facts have not yet come to hand and as such I would provide an answer at the earliest opportunity."

Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh asked if the centre had yet been accredited to permit results being accepted in court. Hinds responded that the centre had not yet been accredited and it was a work in progress.

"But that does not mean that its work does not stand to court scrutiny and for other public purposes."

The body of a woman, minus her hands and feet, which was found five months ago in some bushes was this week confirmed as that of missing mother of two Anita Mohammed. The 45-year-old woman of Freeport went missing on December 20. Eight days later, her body was found near No. 9 Petrotrin Field Road near an oil pump. The body was so badly decomposed that visual confirmation of its identity could not be made. While forensic tests were being done on tissue samples, the body remained on ice in the morgue of the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

Confirmation of the body's identity was made by a male relative at the Centre. Police are treating Mohammed's death as a homicide.