Guardian Staff Re­porter

Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne has part­ed ways with his long-time friend and oc­ca­sion­al co-host Om Lal­la in an ap­par­ent bust-up over Al­leyne's ap­pear­ance on a Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) plat­form last week.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Al­leyne con­firmed the split with Lal­la, an at­tor­ney, but said his show would not be af­fect­ed by Lal­la's split with him."Life goes on. I will still get the job done," Al­leyne said.

Lal­la con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Gabriel Faria yes­ter­day and asked for his im­age to be re­moved from all pro­mo­tion­al ma­te­r­i­al re­lat­ed to the show, in­clud­ing bill­boards, print and tele­vi­sion ad­ver­tise­ments.The re­quest is still be­ing dis­cussed.Al­leyne ad­mit­ted his re­la­tions with Lal­la had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed af­ter Al­leyne ap­peared on stage dur­ing the PP's launch of its lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions cam­paign in San Fer­nan­do on Sep­tem­ber 30.

He said he would not apol­o­gise for go­ing on the plat­form, how­ev­er, as it was the on­ly way he could clear his name in re­la­tion to the al­le­ga­tions In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Jack Warn­er had made.

Warn­er's claim sparks trou­ble

Dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 26 in Point Fortin, Warn­er had claimed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had asked Al­leyne if he was in­ter­est­ed in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter post.Warn­er said Ram­lo­gan had con­tact­ed Al­leyne by phone and had Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in a three-way con­ver­sa­tion on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Al­leyne join­ing her Cab­i­net af­ter a reshuf­fle.

Yes­ter­day, Al­leyne said: "I could not have the lies that the Prime Min­is­ter con­tact­ed me float­ing around. I had to clear my name."But Al­leyne ad­mit­ted his de­ci­sion to ap­pear on the PP plat­form had brought an im­me­di­ate re­sponse from Lal­la, as the next day, Lal­la re­turned the file on Al­leyne's case on a charge of re­sist­ing ar­rest which is be­fore the courts.

Lal­la had pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed Al­leyne at all hear­ings of the case. Dur­ing a hear­ing on Sep­tem­ber 16, Lal­la said he would be step­ping down as Al­leyne's at­tor­ney be­cause he was a wit­ness in the case and be­lieved it was a clear con­flict of in­ter­est.Al­leyne has since re­tained Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan and for­mer High Court judge Lar­ry Lal­la (no re­la­tion) to de­fend him.

Khan is al­so rep­re­sent­ing the Prime Min­is­ter in the on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion of a se­ries of e-mails which al­leged­ly im­pli­cat­ed se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in a con­spir­a­cy to com­mit crim­i­nal of­fences in the Sec­tion 34 mat­ter.

Stop Crime Watch­pro­mos–lawyer

The e-mails were raised in Par­lia­ment by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing his no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in May against the PM.

Pol­i­tics breaks friend­ship

Al­leyne said yes­ter­day he was dis­ap­point­ed and sad­dened by the loss of his friend, say­ing he be­lieved Lal­la had al­lowed po­lit­i­cal is­sues to in­flu­ence him."He brought pol­i­tics be­tween our friend­ship," Al­leyne said.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day evening, Lal­la said he was not will­ing to com­ment fur­ther."I will not en­ter the de­bate. I spoke on it briefly this week­end. I don't want to say any­thing to jeop­ar­dise the sit­u­a­tion," Lal­la said.

Asked about the re­quest for his im­age to be re­moved from Crime Watch pro­mos, Lal­la de­clined to com­ment, de­scrib­ing that is­sue as "sen­si­tive."