The State has been slammed by de­fence at­tor­ney Ian Brooks, for its fail­ure to ap­point an at­tor­ney to pros­e­cute his client who fac­ing a cap­i­tal charge. Brooks, in an emo­tion­al mes­sage when he stood at the Bar ta­ble, be­fore act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton, said his client had been charged since May this year, and there was no in­di­ca­tion that the al­le­ga­tion would be heard soon. Brooks said: "That is rank in­com­pe­tence. That is in­com­pe­tence at a quin­tes­sen­tial lev­el. It can't be put any oth­er way."

His client Joseph Por­tillo, alias "Tin Tin," is ac­cused of the April 1 mur­der of Michael Julien in Diego Mar­tin. He al­so faces ad­di­tion­al charges of un­law­ful pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion. Brooks said it was "of­fen­sive" that al­most four months had elapsed since his client had been charged with the of­fences and noth­ing had been done. He said this was un­ac­cept­able.

"You mean to tell me a man has been charged with mur­der since May and the file has not been sent to the DPP as yet?" he ques­tioned. In re­sponse, com­plainant WPC Mun­gal-Alexan­der said the file was still in the hands of se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer ASP Nadir Khan. Welling­ton ad­vised Brooks to write to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions di­rect­ly. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 13.