Derek Achong

De­tails of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr's in­volve­ment in the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup were yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed to the nine-mem­ber ju­ry sit­ting in on his on­go­ing sedi­tion tri­al. The ev­i­dence, pre­sent­ed in the form of a short nar­ra­tive, is part of the State's bad-char­ac­ter ev­i­dence against Bakr.

Af­ter pre­sent­ing the in­for­ma­tion to the ju­ry Jus­tice Mark Mo­hammed, pre­sid­ing over the tri­al, said state pros­e­cu­tors were re­ly­ing on the ev­i­dence to show three is­sues that un­der­pin their case against him. Mo­hammed said the State con­tend­ed that be­cause of his role in the coup at­tempt, Bakr had the propen­si­ty or ten­den­cy to en­gage in in­sur­rec­tion-type acts.

Mo­hammed ex­plained that af­ter the events of Ju­ly 27, 1990, Bakr was charged with trea­son, false im­pris­on­ment and pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion with in­tent to en­dan­ger life. Mo­hammed said the le­gal de­f­i­n­i­tions of trea­son and sedi­tion were close­ly linked, with both of­fences be­ing re­lat­ed to force­ful op­po­si­tion to law­ful au­thor­i­ty.

He al­so not­ed that the ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed by the State in an at­tempt to show Bakr's state of mind at the time of his con­tro­ver­sial 2005 Eid-ul-Fitr ser­mon. Bakr, through his at­tor­neys, has agreed to tes­ti­fy at the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, up­on com­ple­tion of the tri­al, which is ex­pect­ed to end by mid-Au­gust.

Be­sides sedi­tion, Bakr, 70, of La Puer­ta Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin, is fac­ing charges of en­deav­our­ing to pro­voke a breach of the peace and two charges of in­cit­ing oth­ers to de­mand mon­ey by men­ace. All four charges against Bakr stem from a speech de­liv­ered to about 200 of his sup­port­ers at the Ja­maat's Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James mosque. The speech cen­tred on za­kaat, the Is­lam­ic prin­ci­ple re­quir­ing Mus­lims to give to the poor.

Mo­hammed said the new ev­i­dence would help the ju­ry de­ter­mine Bakr's cred­i­bil­i­ty in ac­cus­ing wit­ness­es of ly­ing, es­pe­cial­ly in the tes­ti­mo­ny of for­mer In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) pres­i­dent Bro No­ble Khan. "The de­fence are al­leg­ing that Khan is not telling the truth and that he was a pawn in a con­spir­a­cy by se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in 2005 against Bakr," Mo­hammed said.

He said the ev­i­dence of the in­sur­rec­tion would al­so help ju­rors de­ter­mine if Bakr's con­spir­a­cy de­fence was cred­i­ble. Mo­hammed warned the ju­rors not to make pro­nounce­ments on the case un­til he had ex­plained the le­gal prin­ci­ples in his sum­ma­tion to them. "The pur­pose of this ev­i­dence is not to gen­er­ate prej­u­dice against Bakr," Mo­hammed said.

Khan end­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny yes­ter­day af­ter be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by Bakr's de­fence at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge for six days. Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal and State at­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan are pros­e­cut­ing. The tri­al con­tin­ues to­day.