Yvonne Ba­boolal

Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr's much an­tic­i­pat­ed ev­i­dence be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt at a coup d'etat yes­ter­day did not ma­te­ri­alise as the in­sur­rec­tion leader failed to show.Bakr who ini­tial­ly vol­un­teered to give ev­i­dence had lawyer Naveen Ma­haraj ap­pear on his be­half at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain of­fer­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for the non-ap­pear­ance.Bakr has been ad­vised by his at­tor­neys against giv­ing ev­i­dence at this point in time, Ma­haraj told the com­mis­sion.

"He wants to tes­ti­fy. He is will­ing to an­swer all the ques­tions and as­sist the com­mis­sion in what­ev­er way he can. The on­ly is­sue is the time to do so."Ma­haraj ex­plained that Bakr is about to go on tri­al on a five-point in­dict­ment be­fore the High Court, in­clud­ing pro­mot­ing a ter­ror­ist act through the de­liv­er­ing of a 2005 ser­mon.The mat­ter came up for hear­ing last Mon­day and was post­poned and resched­uled for Ju­ly 5 to fix a tri­al date for the start of pro­ceed­ings.Ma­haraj said there are three con­cerns with Bakr giv­ing ev­i­dence at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry at this time.

"Ques­tions may be asked which may be, to him, con­ced­ing or record­ing that what he did in 1990 amount­ed to a ter­ror­ist act."Ques­tions asked and an­swers elicit­ed by the Imam may and can be used against him in his tri­al," Ma­haraj told the com­mis­sion.Fur­ther, ad­verse find­ings (by the com­mis­sion) may be made against his cred­i­bil­i­ty in the up­com­ing tri­al for the ter­ror­ist charge, he said."Bakr's de­fence is en­tire­ly one of cred­i­bil­i­ty on that count. If there is any ad­verse find­ing against his cred­i­bil­i­ty, this will prej­u­dice his up­com­ing tri­al.

"We want to en­sure a fair tri­al for our client and will not want to gen­er­ate more pre-tri­al pub­lic­i­ty as he may be un­suc­cess­ful if he tes­ti­fies at this time."The com­mis­sion's lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan told the com­mis­sion that when Bakr was first sched­uled to tes­ti­fy he did so vol­un­tar­i­ly."I am heart­ened to learn the in­cli­na­tion still ex­ists. It seems the core con­cern re­volves around self-in­crim­i­na­tion, pre-tri­al pub­lic­i­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty."The con­cerns are ap­par­ent­ly le­git­i­mate but our con­cern is that we can't wait in­def­i­nite­ly.Com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons in­formed Ma­haraj that en­quiry ses­sions will be held from Sep­tem­ber 12 to 23, Oc­to­ber 24 to No­vem­ber 4 and from De­cem­ber 6 to 16.