For any T&T Guardian reporter who worked through the failed July 27, 1990 coup attempt, some of yesterday's events around the Port-of-Spain Magistrates' Court was deja vu, holding certain striking parallels, as the 25th anniversary of the 1990 episode passed into history.
The area was almost the same: The St Vincent Street court block neighbouring the Red House where the 1990 event occurred.
A few of the key players outside and inside around the court were the same, such as Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, who led the 1990 insurrection.
Moreover, the atmosphere around the court block was a capsule replica of that around the Red House in 1990: Tight security, high tension, heavy police firepower, barricades prevalent, blaring sirens and helicopters continuously overhead.
And Jamaat-affiliated people were at the centre of the issue.
This time though, neither they (nor Bakr, who had crossed the quarter century into part of yesterday's scenario) were in control. The accused brought to court under heavy police presence were there to face charges concerning the execution of special state prosecutor Dana Seetahal in May 2014.
The zone in front the court, down St Vincent Street, between Duke and Knox Streets, was a hotbed of police from end to end. Riot gear-types. Masked officers. Armed to the teeth (knives along with heavy gun power). Steel helmets. Snipers in key surrounding buildings. K-9 dogs (one heavily scratching some irritant). The works.
Sound and fury of sirens on the ground. Beat of helicopters constantly overhead. Police screened and scanned court workers entering the zone. People watched from buildings and street corners around the block. Reporters were relegated to limits behind barriers.
And gathering all morning at various street corners were Jamaat members in Muslim garb, some in black with red keffiyehs draped overhead. Others were in white robes or black, and women in hijabs, a majority in black.
Regiment officers were low profile, several officers near an army jeep on the corner of Duke and St Vincent Streets, where Muslimeen youths and others stood, and also on Knox and St Vincent Streets near the army outpost opposite the Red House.
All other cases were put off.
Independent Liberal Party (ILP) leader Jack Warner, who arrived for his US matter, left about an hour after when his matter was postponed, yielding the spotlight to the Seetahal accused.
Among those, the sole female arrived in a van and the others in several batches, escorted by a convoy of police vehicles which drove northwards up south-flowing St Vincent Street and backed into the prisoners' bay to offload.
As one van waited for prisoners to disembark, a few of those in that van called out to reporters: "Khamal Georges! media man...!" The voice harshly complained people wouldn't "transport dogs in America like that."
Another called the name of another TV reporter. The voices were strong and harsh. No fear or anxiety. Some of the prisoners voiced protest by banging on the van's inside walls.
Among Muslimeen members clustered on Duke Street, Bakr, his son, Fuad, and second in command Lorris Ballack and an elder Muslimeen, stood with female members, including wives of the accused.
One, a young woman in jeans and a green scarf-type hijab, wept. Other women kept trying to comfort her and secure her loosening scarf.
Around mid-morning, the group came to the area in front the court, seeking to enter. They were electronically scanned on the street by officers, ahead of the scanning system inside the court building.
A heavily robed youth whose head was almost completely covered with an overhanging grey kuffiyeh was asked to lift his robe up to around his waist. Bakr, his son and others entered while Ballack and another group remained on Duke Street. Fuad Abu Bakr emerged an hour later, voicing his (dim) view of the situation.
He later told the T&T Guardian of the toll it was taking on relatives of the accused spouses: A two-year-old daughter who had gone into withdrawal; a wife who had stopped eating; another forced to breastfeed her infant on the street, waiting to see her husband.
People began to disperse after noon when the last batches were processed and prisoners were later ferried to Remand on Frederick Street.
For the police, however, the mood didn't relax, even as one officer gently helped a blind young man tap his way through the street of police, vehicles (and media cables).
It was after all, July 27 and a quarter century after that last memorable period, it was all business this time.