Live Blogging DWH Investigation – Captain and OIM No Longer Presumed Innocent?

In a heated debate between the lawyers of Captain Curt Kutcha and Jimmy Harrell and the investigation panel, Captain Hung Nguyen, threatened to remove the mariner’s representation if they continued to voice their objections during the remaining hearings.

The threat came after heated debate as the lawyers voiced their clients objections to being designated persons of interest after their testimony and after nearly two weeks of trial had already been competed. Capt. Nguyen stated “All persons are presumed innocent at the beginning of the hearings but as we go ahead with the hearings and hear testimony of witnesses we may designate new parties of interest”. Does this mean Harrell and Kutcha are no longer considered innocent? Why did the Investigative panel wait for days after hearing this, supposedly, incriminating evidence.

Even more shocking is the fact that five BP representatives scheduled to provide testimony this week will not be showing up. When Harrell’s lawyer asked for the reasons for these no-shows he was refused an answer by Capt. Nguyen.

gCaptain sat through both Kutcha and Harrell’s testimonies and, while the evening did not go perfectly (do major incident responses ever?), and while we are certainly not lawyers, we did not hear anything that struck us as incriminating.

No BP employees have yet to be named parties of interest despite a few having already testified and despite mounting evidence suggesting there were significant well design flaws.

Is this yet another case of incriminating the mariner? gCaptain would like to hear your comments.

You can watch the hearings live via THIS LINK.

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