Yvonne Ba­boolal

Mar­tin Daly, SC, and Fyard Ho­sein, SC, cre­at­ed a "recipe" when they were draft­ing the con­tro­ver­sial amnesty for Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­rec­tion­ists in 1990 but the fi­nal "le­gal meal" cooked was not in ac­cor­dance with that recipe. This was dis­closed by Daly him­self yes­ter­day as he gave ev­i­dence at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the event at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain.

Hes­i­tat­ing be­fore he made the star­tling dis­clo­sure, Daly said all at­tor­neys and politi­cians at Camp Og­den ex­pect­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al va­lid­i­ty of the amnesty, which freed 114 in­sur­gents, to be test­ed as soon as pos­si­ble af­ter the up­ris­ing. "We record­ed (in the amnesty) the cir­cum­stances at the time and felt since no for­mal con­sti­tu­tion­al process had been in­voked, the amnesty would be deemed in­valid," he told the com­mis­sion.

"I did not see any le­gal com­pli­ca­tions at the be­gin­ning. I felt if the in­sur­gents at­tempt­ed to use the par­don, the State would chal­lenge it." What hap­pened in the courts af­ter­wards was not what they ex­pect­ed. In Ju­ly 1992, Jus­tice Cle­bert?Brooks or­dered the re­lease of the 114 men, who had been in prison for two years await­ing tri­al for trea­son, mur­der and oth­er of­fences aris­ing out of the failed coup.

Brooks said the amnesty grant­ed to the Mus­limeen rebels by then act­ing pres­i­dent Joseph Em­manuel Carter on Ju­ly 28, 1990, was valid. Daly, in his wit­ness state­ment to the com­mis­sion, re­in­forced Ho­sein's ev­i­dence on Thurs­day that the amnesty was giv­en to the Mus­limeen for one chief rea­son: to avoid fur­ther phys­i­cal in­jury to Prime Min­is­ter ANR?Robin­son and oth­er par­lia­men­tar­i­ans be­ing held hostage in the Red House.

"Carter showed me a let­ter from Sel­wyn Richard­son (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who was be­ing held hostage in the Red House) which ap­peared to be a di­rec­tive to grant a par­don. "The va­lid­i­ty of the amnesty, in my mind, was not to be de­cid­ed by con­sti­tu­tion­al sta­tus. It was to be de­cid­ed in court.

"It was writ­ten not to fool any­one, but to show the cir­cum­stances that led to it. The court would have de­ter­mined its le­gal­i­ty, we felt." Daly said to this day, he re­mained un­com­fort­able that the amnesty came about in the way it did. "We were pressed," he told the com­mis­sion, al­most apolo­get­i­cal­ly.

Not­ing it was his view the State did not ar­gue its case against the Mus­limeen ful­ly and prop­er­ly, Daly said he, for­mer Chief Jus­tice Michael de la Bastide, and de­ceased Se­nior Coun­sel Desmond Al­lum were asked to com­prise the pros­e­cu­tion team. The team was shat­tered be­fore it reached the court­room.

Asked why, Daly replied, "Pol­i­tics. "The choice of Al­lum did not find favour with the pow­ers that be." Stat­ing he was leav­ing out the "gory de­tails," Daly added, "Some­one else was cho­sen on the crim­i­nal side. Cer­tain cir­cum­stances arose and I felt I couldn't con­tin­ue on the case. De la Bastide had pulled out."

Daly re­called in­ci­dents dur­ing the Ju­ly 1990 cri­sis that left him won­der­ing. He said he was in­vit­ed to a lawyers' con­fer­ence at the Hilton Trinidad the day af­ter the hostages were re­leased, the pur­pose of which was to de­cide what steps to take from there. "It was more con­trolled con­fu­sion. They didn't have dif­fi­cul­ty putting us in a room and get­ting us to think."

What sur­prised him was when he was asked for his room num­ber. "Peo­ple had rooms," he said in­cred­u­lous­ly. Among the nine steps the le­gal team agreed on in a doc­u­ment ti­tled "For Ur­gent Ac­tion" was the sign­ing of a de­ten­tion or­der for the Mus­limeen who were im­pris­oned in?Ch­aguara­mas. Most of the steps were nev­er tak­en, in­clud­ing sign­ing the de­ten­tion or­der, Daly not­ed.

When the amnesty case lat­er be­gan to un­rav­el, there was talk of dam­ages to be paid to the Mus­limeen, who felt their de­ten­tion was un­law­ful and thus no charges could arise. Daly al­so told of a news re­lease he wrote, which was nev­er re­leased. The Mus­limeen were to be charged and the gov­ern­ment want­ed the pop­u­la­tion to un­der­stand the amnesty was giv­en un­der duress, he said.

"We pumped up our case de­lib­er­ate­ly for the ar­gu­ment that the amnesty was not valid. It was nev­er re­leased," he said. The thir­teenth ses­sion of the coup en­quiry end­ed yes­ter­day. What may well be the penul­ti­mate ses­sion will be­gin on Jan­u­ary 30, 2013 and end on Feb­ru­ary 8, com­mis­sion chair­man, Sir David Sim­mons said. Sim­mons wished all in the court­room a mer­ry Christ­mas.