Crime Watch hosts parts company with friend and attorney Om Lalla

Crime Watch host Ian Alleyne with his new lawyers, Israel Khan and Larry Lalla (Guardian Photo)

The professional relationship between Crime Watch host Ian Alleyne and Om Lalla is over but Alleyne doesn't seem to be bothered about it.

In confirming the break with Lalla, Alleyne told the Guardian newspaper,"Life goes on. I will still get the job done." 

He added that he is "disappointed and saddened" by the loss of his friend, and suggested that politicals might have caused the breakup. There is speculation that Lalla mnight be the candidate for Jack Warner's Independent Liberal Party (ILP) in the November 4 byelection in St Joseph.

"He brought politics between our friendship,” Alleyne said. However Lalla declined comment on the matter. "I will not enter the debate...I don’t want to say anything to jeopardise the situation," Lalla told the Guardian.

The Guardian stated that relationship between the two started to deteriorate following Alleyne's appearance at a People's Partnership rally in San Fernando and called Warner a liar. 

That was in response to a statement Warner had made a week earlier that Attorney General Anand Ramlogan had asked Alleyne to be the People's Partnership candidate in the November 4 St Joseph byelection. Alleyne said that conversation never took place

Alleyne told the paper, "I could not have the lies that the Prime Minister contacted me floating around. I had to clear my name."

He explained that the day after the meeting in San Fernando Lalla returned the file on Alleyne’s case on a charge of resisting arrest, which is before the courts.

Lalla told the court on September 16 he is a witness in the case and believed it was a clear conflict of interest for him to continue to represent Alleyne in the matter. Alleyne has since retained Senior Counsel Israel Khan and former High Court judge Larry Lalla to defend him.

The Alleyne case came up Monday and Khan made a no-case submission before Senior Magistrate Annette McKenzie in the Port-of-Spain Fourth (A) Court, claiming that Alleyne's arrest was illegal because the police did not have reasonable cause to suspect Alleyne had committed an offence. 

"If the arrest is unlawful, he could not be resisting," Khan told the magistrate, explaining that the police should have "properly informed" Alleyne of the grounds for he was being detained and the specific offence he was alleged to have committed.

State prosecutor George Busby asked for additional time to consider Khan’s submissions and McKenzie adjourned the case to October 18.