An­na-Lisa Paul

A Barataria crafts­man charged for rob­bery with vi­o­lence claimed yes­ter­day he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Keny­a­ta James, 33, of First Street, Barataria, swore to Mag­is­trate Nali­ni Singh in the Port-of-Spain Eleventh Court that he was be­ing made to pay for a crime he did not com­mit, be­cause of his "sit­u­a­tion."

James is hear­ing-im­paired and is bare­ly lit­er­ate.

The court had heard that the vic­tim's lit­tle fin­ger on his right hand had to be am­pu­tat­ed and he suf­fered lac­er­a­tions and bruis­es to his neck and low­er back dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Al­though the charge was shown to him yes­ter­day by Sgt Greer Lawrence-Brit­ton, James was un­able to un­der­stand lit­tle more than his name on the case sheet.

The charge is that on De­cem­ber 26 at Red­man Lane, Don Miguel Road, San Juan, James and an­oth­er man robbed Ker­ron Sook­nanan, 17, of a sil­ver chain val­ued at $2,000.

James was not called to en­ter a plea, and min­utes af­ter Sgt Azad Ali re­quest­ed time to se­cure a sign-lan­guage coach to as­sist James dur­ing his next ap­pear­ance, the mat­ter was ad­journed to Jan­u­ary 3.

As Sook­nanan stood in court to al­low the mag­is­trate to view the ex­tent of the in­juries suf­fered dur­ing the rob­bery, James point­ed to him and said in a loud voice: "I swear to almighty God that I nev­er did any­thing to that boy. It was some­body else and I see every­thing that hap­pened but be­cause of my sit­u­a­tion, I am be­ing blamed and does get in­to a lot of trou­ble."

James claimed he had gone to vis­it a friend to cel­e­brate the birth of the friend's ba­by and had wit­nessed the in­ci­dent, but the re­al sus­pect had es­caped.

Ali asked that the mat­ter be ad­journed to al­low the jus­tice of the peace some time to se­cure a sign lan­guage teacher from Dretchi to as­sist James dur­ing his next ap­pear­ance.

James pro­duced a med­ical re­port for Singh, re­veal­ing that he was due to re­turn to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment lat­er this week.

As­sur­ing James that the court would put pro­vi­sions in place for him, Singh slow­ly ex­plained to James that af­ter view­ing his crim­i­nal trac­ing-which was three pages long and boast­ed two con­vic­tions and 15 pend­ing mat­ters-she was un­able to grant him bail.

James told the court he was will­ing to as­sist the po­lice to catch the re­al cul­prit, as he knew him from "see­ing him around."