Terror-supporting Trinidad & Tobago Muslim leader Yasin Abu Bakr

In 1990, an attempt was made by the Jamaaat al-Muslimeen group to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state. It failed, but the undercurrents of Jihad and Islamic supremacism remain:

Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr says his hopes in the new People’s Partnership Government is now dashed because of its move to auction his properties. This was a “dangerous, dangerous, dangerous thing,” he said. Bakr said the action was unlawful because it went against a Privy Council judgement, but senior attorneys disagreed, saying Bakr had his own interpretation of the matter.

Bakr said, “I felt very relieved when the PNM lost the general election. I was very happy about the new Government which seemed to want to do the right thing. “I had hopes that something refreshing is going to come but my hopes are being dashed by the new Government. Something is wrong. Somebody’s crazy.”

An angry Bakr made the comments last Thursday after Attorney General Anand Ramlogan announced at a political meeting last Wednesday night that 11 properties (worth over $9 million) belonging to him and senior Jamaat member, Kala Akii Bua, are to be put up for public auction.

The move is being made to satisfy a $32 million debt owed to the State for the destruction of Police Headquarters during the 1990 coup d’etat. Bakr’s comments also came shortly after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s announcement at last Thursday’s post-Cabinet media briefing of the setting up of a commission of enquiry into the Muslimeen’s attempted take over of the country in 1990. Bakr, 69, said he was glad for the enquiry to finally get their views out, but declared that the Government’s auction of his properties was “unlawful.”

He gave copies of the July 1990 amnesty signed by then acting president, Emmanual Carter, which was granted to the 114 insurrectionists, to the media. He also distributed copies of a part of the Privy Council judgement of May 2009, in which he lost his appeal, bringing the State closer to selling off the 11 properties.

He referred to the part that read, “However, the order of habeas corpus having been made, the Board is able to assist the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions, as they requested, by saying that after the habeas corpus was made, it would be an abuse of process to seek once more to prosecute the Muslimeen for the serious offences committed in the course of the insurrection.

Bakr never put up defence
Senior attorneys, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, disagreed with Bakr, however. “What he is saying does not make sense,” one lawyer said. “The Privy Council judgement of 1995 dealt with criminal proceedings against Bakr and the 113 insurrectionists. “It said it would be an abuse of process to continue criminal proceedings against them.

“However, it did not say a civil lawsuit could not be filed for damage and destruction to Police Headquarters. It is not unlawful to do so. “Plus, the 11 properties are being sold pursuant to a court order.” Another attorney had a slightly different perspective on the matter. He said the issue of whether the Privy Council judgement applied to criminal or civil proceedings was never ventilated in court. “Bakr never put in a defence and the matter never came up before the court. Bakr has his own interpretation of the matter but nobody could completely say yes or nay on it.”

Asked if the Government was acting illegally, therefore, he replied, “They are acting pursuant to a court order.” Bakr said the properties the Government wants to auction include the homes of his four wives and children and some real estate. “Kala has some land and a lot of children. “If the Government goes ahead with this, they will be breaking the law. What are we doing in court? The matter has ended.

You can’t appeal the judgement of the Privy Council. This is political persecution.” Asked if he can take legal action, Bakr replied, “I don’t know.” He said he went to Anand Ramlogan before the general elections last year for advice and he agreed the matter was unlawful. Bakr said Ramlogan promised to get help for him. “I swear by God in whose hand is my life. I swear on my mother’s grave and my wife and children. God strike me dead. I don’t lie. “Ramlogan has definitely changed his position. I don’t know where this is going.”

Ramlogan did not respond to a question on the matter up to late yesterday. Bakr also claimed he was not even asked if he could pay the $32 million debt the Jamaat owes the State. “Nobody even asked me if I want to pay the debt. The Government is not giving me a chance. Millions of dollars in debt have been written off for other people.” He also noted, too, that he has no money to pay the debt. “They have to drag the matter 14 years and add interest. Who’s responsible for that?” “I heard nothing from Jack (Warner, UNC Chairman). He is the man who seems to be solving everything.

“There were some in the UNC I considered to be my friends.”
He said he honestly believes the matter will end in some kind of consensus. “I don’t think they are going to put me as a vagrant,” Bakr said. He categorically denied that anyone from the Jamaat would have threatened the PM or told anybody to do it.

‘We have some influence’
Noting that he “has some influence on the street,” Bakr lashed out strongly against any plan by the PP Government to resume hangings or reinstate corporal punishment for prisoners. Jack Warner had stated that he intended to discuss the issue of hanging with Ramlogan and Subhas Panday, Minister in the National Security Ministry, spoke on the reintroduction of strokes for criminals. “Ninety-eight per cent of the prisoners are Africans and they want to start lynching them.

“That’s slavery!” He said he worked in depressed areas for years and persuaded criminals to come out of that life. “In 1985, the Jamaat used to run the streets and there was 187 murders a year. Observing that there is a deafening silence from PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley on this matter, he asked, “Who is representing the marginalised, oppressed, depressed, starving young people in the ghetto?”

He warned the Government that, before they start lynching, they should find out that there is a lot of guns on the streets. “Young people don’t care who they kill….You will have a real problem on your hands.” Responding to claims that there is a Muslim versus non-Muslim war in north Trinidad, he said it was related to the “stupid narco-trade in the ghetto.” The Imam refused to disclose the membership of the organisation saying that was a security risk. Despite the somewhat deserted air at the mosque last Thursday, he claimed that there are more members now than in 1990. “We now have mosques in Palo Seco, Point Fortin, Moruga, Arima…we’re spread out all over the country.”

July 27, 1990 coup
On July 27, 1990, Muslimeen insurgents stormed Parliament while it was in session and took then prime minister, ANR Robinson and seven Cabinet Ministers hostage.
Police Headquarters on St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, was burnt down by a car bomb.

At the same time, Muslimeen insurrectionists stormed State-owened Trinidad and Tobago Television and, Radio Trinidad, and took command of the airwaves.
A State of Emergency was declared while gun battles between the Defence Force and the Muslimeen insurgents continued for days. The official death toll was put at 24.

Finance Minister Winston Dookeran, then a NAR Minister, took charge and helped negotiate an end to the coup d’etat.

On day five, Robinson was released with a gunshot wound in his leg.
Bakr and his men surrendered on August 1 after they were given an amnesty, offering them pardon.
The amnesty was later struck down by the Privy Council but by then the court had ruled to try them for treason and murder.

‘Governments haven’t learnt to deal with people’
Asked what he learnt from July 1990, Bakr replied, “That successive governments have learnt nothing about how to deal with people.” Bakr said the attempted coup was an act of self defense because the police, defying a court order, was illegally occupying their property at their Mucurapo compound. “They wanted a military solution and they got one,” he recalled.

Mendes: The sale is legal
Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr had the option of appealing a court ruling to stall the Government’s auctioning of his properties. He chose not to and as a result the 11 properties in question, owned by Bakr and Jamaat member Kala Aki Bua, will go on the auction block on August 17 at City Hall, Port-of-Spain. Bakr is claiming that the sale is unlawful. Contacted yesterday, attorney Douglas Mendes, SC, said, “Nobody could sell a property without a court order. If Bakr had appealed the court ruling he would have been granted a stay of the order putting a hold on the sale. The sale is legal.”—AGS

The auction
The 11 properties owned by Bakr and Akii Bua are to be auctioned at City Hall, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain at 10 am on August 17.

The government is right to take action to recover its losses against the attempted Jihad/coup. But it should be braced for retaliatory action, both from the local Muslims and the wider Ummah.

Bakr, in addition to his suspected terror links, does indeed to have ‘influence on the streets’ and more internal unrest is a distinct possibility should the asset auction proceed.

However, the much higher profile and assertiveness of radical Islam since the original coup attempt may also threaten a much wider (and potentially much more dangerous) external reaction this time.

[Source: Trinidad & Tobago Guardian]

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