Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is wants an ear­ly start to hear­ing of a mur­der charge against him be­cause of un­fair treat­ment and ad­verse pub­lic­i­ty, his lawyer said yes­ter­day.At­tor­ney Joseph Hon­ore made the re­quest when the 45-year-old ap­peared be­fore Ch­agua­nas First Court mag­is­trate Gillian Scot­land, charged with mur­der.Alex­is, dressed in Is­lam­ic garb, stood silent­ly as Scot­land read the charge that on Oc­to­ber 7, 2008, at Michael Ter­race, En­ter­prise, he and oth­er per­sons mur­dered Vin­cent Em­manuel Sim­mons. The charge was laid by Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tor Sgt An­der­son Pa­ri­man. Alex­is re­mained silent dur­ing yes­ter­day's court ap­pear­ance, in sharp con­trast to his first ap­pear­ance in court on Mon­day. When he ap­peared be­fore a San Fer­nan­do Clerk of the Peace, Alex­is shout­ed: "Pol­i­tics, pol­i­tics."Hon­ore told Scot­land that his client had been the sub­ject of "ad­verse pub­lic­i­ty" be­fore he was charged, and was call­ing for the mat­ter to be start­ed. "We are ask­ing for an ear­ly start, giv­en the pub­lic­i­ty gen­er­at­ed...Pa­ri­man should put his house in or­der to have an ear­ly start," the at­tor­ney said.Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor act­ing In­sp Joey Sama­roo, how­ev­er, told the court that the file was still to be sub­mit­ted to the DPP.Alex­is will re­turn to court on Oc­to­ber 4.

Hon­ore ex­pressed con­cern that Alex­is was on­ly charged on Mon­day, af­ter be­ing de­tained since Au­gust 30.Alex­is was ar­rest­ed last Tues­day at a lux­u­ry apart­ment at One Wood­brook Place, Port-of-Spain.Yes­ter­day, a heav­i­ly-armed con­tin­gent of po­lice of­fi­cers in tac­ti­cal uni­form stood out­side the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates' Court as Alex­is ap­peared.He en­tered the court around 9.40 am in hand­cuffs.Hon­ore called on the po­lice to re­lease Alex­is's van, which was seized dur­ing his ar­rest, as well as his pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras.The at­tor­ney al­so claimed that the po­lice took Alex­is's house keys and did not pro­vide any re­ceipts for the seized items. Is­su­ing of re­ceipts was the nor­mal prac­tice, he con­tend­ed."These all show how my client has been un­fair­ly treat­ed...Even the keys to his home," Hon­ore sub­mit­ted.Sama­roo replied: "The com­plainant (Pa­ri­man) does not know about the items, since he did not make the ar­rest."