Sev­en more ju­rors are ex­pect­ed to be se­lect­ed by next Fri­day to sit in the sedi­tion tri­al of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. Af­ter yes­ter­day's ju­ry-se­lec­tion process in the Port-of-Spain High Court two ad­di­tion­al ju­rors were cho­sen to sit on the nine-mem­ber pan­el with six al­ter­nates, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ju­rors se­lect­ed so far to eight. Bakr, al­so known as Lennox Phillip, 72, is be­fore Jus­tice Mark Mo­hammed in the Third Court charged with com­mu­ni­cat­ing a state­ment hav­ing sedi­tious in­ten­tion, two counts of in­cit­ing to de­mand with men­aces with in­tent to steal and en­deav­our­ing to pro­voke a breach of the peace. The charges arose out of an Eid-ul-Fitr ser­mon Bakr de­liv­ered at the or­gan­i­sa­tion's Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James, masjid on No­vem­ber 4, 2005. At the be­gin­ning of the tri­al in Jan­u­ary, sev­er­al thou­sand po­ten­tial ju­rors were sum­moned to take part in the ju­ry-se­lec­tion process.

Af­ter un­der­go­ing ques­tion­ing by Mo­hammed, the num­bers of po­ten­tial ju­rors fell dra­mat­i­cal­ly, with most be­ing ex­cused af­ter they of­fered ev­i­dence of health prob­lems or a di­rect re­la­tion­ship to Bakr and his rel­a­tives. The po­ten­tial ju­rors al­so were ques­tioned by Bakr's at­tor­neys and state pros­e­cu­tors. Bakr ap­peared in court yes­ter­day and again kept his in­jured leg el­e­vat­ed on a chair in the pris­on­ers' en­clo­sure. He un­der­went an op­er­a­tion on his leg ear­li­er this year which led to his miss­ing pre­vi­ous court dates, on his doc­tors' rec­om­men­da­tions. He is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by British Queen's Coun­sel Mar­tin Hicks and at­tor­neys Wayne Sturge, Naveen Maraj and Vive­ka Par­gass. Spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, and at­tor­neys Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan and Shelly-Ann Ga­jad­har are ap­pear­ing for the state. The mat­ter con­tin­ues to­day.