By INDARJIT SEURAJ Wednesday, October 21 2009

click on pic to zoom in

SURROUNDED: Policemen, some of them in bulletproof vests, surround the door of the Rio Claro Magistrates' Court yesterday, 24 hours after murder accus...

« prev photo next photo »

THE girlfriend of slain murder accused Peter Garcia yesterday said she is demanding answers from the Police Service as to why only one unarmed policeman was used to escort Garcia to and from the Rio Claro Magistrates’ Court.

Garcia was gunned down in the yard of the courthouse, while handcuffed, by two hitmen who were dressed in construction uniforms complete with hard hats. Saying Garcia was deemed a “high risk” prisoner by the authorities, Bullock felt there should have been more armed policemen at the courthouse when he was being brought to court. “Every time he attended court in the past, there would be so many officers with big guns. So how come on Monday, there was only one policeman and he was not armed? Where were the police?” Bullock asked. Speaking outside the Forensic Science Centre in St James, where she had gone to identify Garcia’s body, Bullock said Garcia knew he had been marked for death and only three weeks earlier, he claimed that an attempt was made on his life by another prisoner who tried to poison him at the Maximum Security Prison in Golden Grove, Arouca.

“He called me and said his life was in danger,” Bullock said. “He told me that they brought a man from Golden Grove Prisons to try to kill him,” she recalled. Garcia, a father of four, surrendered to police on May 12, after he had gone on the run from police who wanted him for a series of crimes including murder.

Garcia was charged for the murder of Indo-culture promoter Simboonath Kumar who was shot dead in April 2008. As he was being escorted from the courthouse, Garcia was shot seven times about the head, chest and leg. Death was instantaneous.

“Knowing that he was fearing for his life and that he got gunned down in the presence of a policeman...it’s really too much for me,” Bullock said as she started to cry. “It’s really hard, the police knew he was a marked man. I just don’t understand,” she sobbed.

Vowing that she would get her justice, Bullock said she and Garcia were planning to be married once he had cleared his name in the court and was released. Up to late yesterday, no arrests were made in connection with Garcia’s assassination.