PRESIDENT of the Magistrate’s Association, Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan, said yesterday that the security system involved in the transporting of prisoners to and from court must be addressed.

Her comment came following the murder Peter Garcia, a man accused of murder, outside the Rio Claro Magistrates’ Court.

’This is too close to comfort,’ Cardenas-Ragoonanan highlighted as she sat in her Port of Spain Four A courtroom.

In a release to the media yesterday, Jones P Madeira, court protocol and information manager, said that the Judiciary is ’deeply concerned’ over the murder of an accused who was being led from the court to the nearby Police Station.

’That this could happen in the vicinity of a court and so very near to a police station give an indication of the boldness and the extent to which criminals are prepared to go to carry out their heinous acts,’ the release stated.

’The Judiciary would now redouble its efforts at reviewing its own security arrangements to ensure that no users of the court system would be put in to any risk’ the release added.

Madeira stated that counselling would be arranged for the staff at the courthouse.