The fi­nal re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the 1990 At­tempt­ed Coup will be de­liv­ered to Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona this morn­ing.The re­port is ex­pect­ed to be hand-de­liv­ered to Car­mona around 10.30 am at his of­fice in St Ann's by the com­mis­sion's chair­man, for­mer Bar­ba­dos Chief Jus­tice Sir David Sim­mons.

A press re­lease from the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent sent yes­ter­day af­ter­noon said the oth­er four mem­bers of the com­mis­sion–Sir Richard Li­onel Chel­tenham, QC, Dr Haf­fi­zo­ol Ali-Mo­hammed, Dr East­lyn McKen­zie and Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att–are al­so ex­pect­ed to at­tend the short meet­ing.The re­port con­sists of three vol­umes ac­com­pa­nied by an ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry.

Hear­ings of the en­quiry, held at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, end­ed in Sep­tem­ber last year, af­ter more than 100 wit­ness­es ap­peared be­fore the com­mis­sion in 17 ses­sions in­clud­ing sev­er­al in-cam­era hear­ings which were closed to the pub­lic and the me­dia.Some of those who were di­rect­ly in­volved in the bloody up­ris­ing or who were vic­tims or rel­a­tives of vic­tims tes­ti­fied. Among the main wit­ness­es were for­mer prime min­is­ters Arthur NR Robin­son and Bas­deo Pan­day.

Robin­son, PM at the time, was among the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) MPs who were held hostage for six days in Par­lia­ment, and he was shot and wound­ed.Those wit­ness­es told the com­mis­sion how they went with­out food and wa­ter and lay bound and gagged on the floor of the Par­lia­ment cham­ber with guns to their heads while rebels and the sol­diers ex­changed gun­fire.

In his tes­ti­mo­ny in Sep­tem­ber last year, Pan­day, who was not present in Par­lia­ment at the time, de­nied al­le­ga­tions that he had pri­or knowl­edge of the in­sur­rec­tion.For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was al­so ab­sent from Par­lia­ment dur­ing the or­deal. He did not tes­ti­fy af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke in 2012. Mem­bers of the De­fence Force, in­clud­ing Col Hugh Vi­dale and re­tired Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ralph Brown and the late for­mer Brig Joe Theodore, who played a key role in help­ing to quell the in­sur­rec­tion, al­so gave ev­i­dence.

For­mer Ja­maat in­sur­gent Ja­maal Shabazz, who led the takeover of the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny, al­so tes­ti­fied.De­spite his role in the in­sur­rec­tion, Yasin Abu Bakr re­fused to ap­pear be­fore the com­mis­sion on two oc­ca­sions, say­ing that his ev­i­dence might prej­u­dice his pend­ing sedi­tion tri­al. His re­fusal led the com­mis­sion to file a pri­vate crim­i­nal com­plaint against him, which is cur­rent­ly be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar.

The com­mis­sion, which be­gan in No­vem­ber 2010 and end­ed al­most three years lat­er, was not free from con­tro­ver­sy. Last year there was un­cer­tain­ty as to whether the en­quiry would con­tin­ue, as ques­tions were raised about the aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions of one of the com­mis­sion­ers, Dr Ali-Mo­hammed. De­spite pres­sure from the pub­lic, Mo­hammed did not re­sign and even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed his job on the com­mis­sion.

1990 coup at­tempt

The at­tempt­ed in­sur­rec­tion, which be­gan on Ju­ly 27, 1990, was led by Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr and in­volved 113 in­sur­rec­tion­ists, who held par­lia­men­tar­i­ans hostage at the Red House and al­so in­vad­ed state-owned tele­vi­sion sta­tion T&T Tele­vi­sion and the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny at Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain.