Yvonne Ba­boolal

While he was Speak­er of the House, Nizam Mo­hammed tried to arrange for the land­ing of a Libyan air­craft dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed over­throw of the gov­ern­ment by Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­gents, vis­it­ed a Sau­di Ara­bi­an prince short­ly af­ter and had met with a Mus­limeen top-ranker be­fore­hand.

These dis­clo­sures were made yes­ter­day at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup by for­mer act­ing clerk of the House Raphael Cum­ber­batch as he gave ev­i­dence.

Mo­hammed served as Speak­er dur­ing the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) gov­ern­ment's regime, af­ter which he went in­to po­lit­i­cal obliv­ion.

He resur­faced when he was ap­point­ed chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion af­ter the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship came in­to of­fice in May 2010 but was fired in April 2011.

Mo­hammed said there was an eth­nic im­bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice and short­ly af­ter had his ap­point­ment re­voked by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards.

Cum­ber­batch, who worked in Par­lia­ment for al­most two decades, was held hostage when the Mus­limeen in­vad­ed the Red House.

He re­called he was re­leased short­ly af­ter by Bi­lal Ab­dul­lah, who ap­peared to know him per­son­al­ly from Bel­mont.

He re­called that Mo­hammed left Par­lia­ment on Ju­ly 27, 1990 af­ter the 4.30 pm tea break, say­ing he was go­ing for prayers at the Munroe Road mosque, Ch­agua­nas.

He said a re­li­able mem­ber of the Par­lia­ment staff told him for­mer Death Row pris­on­er Andy Thomas, who had been re­leased on a pres­i­den­tial par­don and be­came Omowale Ab­dul­lah af­ter he joined the Mus­limeen, vis­it­ed Mo­hammed in the Speak­er's Of­fice on two oc­ca­sions a few months be­fore the coup at­tempt.

Cum­ber­batch said a few years af­ter the up­ris­ing, he was al­so re­li­ably in­formed that Mo­hammed, while he was Speak­er, at­tempt­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the grant­i­ng of land­ing rights to a Libyan air­craft with­in a day or two of Ju­ly 27, 1990.

Al­most as soon as the six-day in­sur­rec­tion was over, some time be­tween Au­gust 6 and 8, Cum­ber­batch said, he arranged for Mo­hammed to vis­it Sau­di Ara­bia on the in­vi­ta­tion of a prince.

It was not gov­ern­ment busi­ness, he said, and it was left to him and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to hasti­ly re­con­vene Par­lia­ment at the Cen­tral Bank au­di­to­ri­um, since the Red House was dam­aged and un­fit to be oc­cu­pied.

A Par­lia­ment was ur­gent­ly need­ed in or­der to de­clare a state of emer­gency, Cum­ber­batch ex­plained. He said the Par­lia­ment staff who worked tire­less­ly to re-es­tab­lish Par­lia­ment af­ter the coup were among the un­sung he­roes of the event.

How­ev­er, when the Par­lia­ment met, Mo­hammed was still ab­sent be­cause he had gone to Sau­di Ara­bia and deputy speak­er, Dr Anselm St George, who had been among the hostages, was too trau­ma­tised to pre­side.

At­tor­ney Theodore Guer­ra, now de­ceased, was elect­ed to serve as speak­er, Cum­ber­batch re­called. The en­quiry con­tin­ues to­day in cam­era.