Derek Achong

Af­ter weeks of rig­or­ous screen­ing, an all-fe­male nine-mem­ber ju­ry has been cho­sen to de­cide the fate of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. The fi­nal mem­ber of the ju­ry pan­el was cho­sen yes­ter­day in the Port-of-Spain High Court af­ter lengthy ques­tion­ing from pre­sid­ing judge Mark Mo­hammed, spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, and Bakr's de­fence at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge. Dur­ing yes­ter­day's sit­ting, the nine ju­ry mem­bers al­so chose a fore­man who will rep­re­sent her fel­low ju­rors in the up­com­ing tri­al.

In ad­di­tion to the main ju­ry pan­el, six al­ter­nates are ex­pect­ed to be se­lect­ed from a po­ten­tial ju­ry pool of more than 1,000 peo­ple by next week. Bakr, al­so known as Lennox Phillip, was ex­cused by Mo­hammed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in the past be­cause of a leg in­jury which re­quired surgery and a long re­cov­ery pe­ri­od.

In ac­cor­dance with his doc­tors' ad­vice, Bakr, who now walks with the as­sis­tance of a cane, again kept his in­jured leg el­e­vat­ed on a chair for his en­tire court ap­pear­ance. Be­sides sedi­tion, Bakr al­so faces charges of pro­mot­ing a ter­ror­ist act, in­cit­ing oth­ers to breach the peace and in­cit­ing a ri­ot. The charges stemmed from an Eid ser­mon he de­liv­ered in No­vem­ber 2005 at the Ja­maat's mosque, Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James.

Bakr is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Queen's Coun­sel Mar­tin Hicks and at­tor­neys Naveen Maraj and Vive­ka Par­gass.