Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Nizam Mo­hammed, says he will not be tes­ti­fy­ing at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed coup to­mor­row.In fact, Mo­hammed says he has no in­ten­tion of tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore the com­mis­sion."I can­not see my­self be­ing avail­able to the com­mis­sion in the near fu­ture, in the very near fu­ture," Mo­hammed told the T&T Guardian at his Gor­don Street, San Fer­nan­do, cham­bers.

He al­so said he in­tend­ed to seek le­gal ad­vice on al­le­ga­tions made about him at the en­quiry by re­tired act­ing clerk of the House Raphael Cum­ber­batch.Cum­ber­batch, who ap­peared be­fore the com­mis­sion last week, said Mo­hammed sought to fa­cil­i­tate the land­ing of a Libyan air­craft short­ly af­ter Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen in­sur­gents in­vad­ed Par­lia­ment around 6 pm on Ju­ly 27, 1990 and seized Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion and the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.

The for­mer act­ing clerk al­so claimed soon af­ter the six-day or­deal end­ed, Mo­hammed flew to Sau­di Ara­bia on the in­vi­ta­tion of a prince.Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Mo­hammed de­clined to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions."There are very se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions made against me. I am yet to meet and con­sult with lawyers about the mat­ter be­cause of my busy court sched­ule. I have not been able to pre­pare a wit­ness state­ment," he said.

Mo­hammed said he would be writ­ing to the com­mis­sion though, since he want­ed to find out if it was seek­ing the source of "all the hearsay ev­i­dence that was al­lowed to be pub­li­cised." He said he al­so want­ed to find out if the source of the in­for­ma­tion would give ev­i­dence."Then I will de­cide at what stage, act­ing on the ad­vice of my lawyers, that I will seek to cross-ex­am­ine such wit­ness­es," he added.

Mo­hammed said Cum­ber­batch "is seek­ing to use me to gain pub­lic­i­ty.""He is a pub­lic­i­ty-mon­ger and I will not oblige him. That is sub­ject to le­gal ad­vice," Mo­hammed said.