Melis­sa Doughty

The Port-of-Spain (POS) City Cor­po­ra­tion's han­dling of the oc­cu­pan­cy of land by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen at No 1 Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James was ques­tioned yes­ter­day by lead coun­sel to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, Av­ery Sinanan, SC, as the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed-coup re­sumed at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain. Through­out the tes­ti­mo­ny the lead coun­sel demon­strat­ed sev­er­al in­con­sis­ten­cies in the cor­po­ra­tion's han­dling of the mat­ter such as de­layed re­spons­es to let­ters sent by the Mus­limeen and the cor­po­ra­tion's year-long de­lay in re­spons­es to its in­spec­tor's re­port about the group's il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of the land. De­o­raj Ram­ta­hal, the city en­gi­neer and for­mer build­ing in­spec­tor, took the stand to tes­ti­fy as to the cor­po­ra­tion's role in the Ja­maat's claim in a May 1 T&T Guardian re­port that a land row caused the Ju­ly 27, 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, the State's at­tor­ney, opened the pro­ceed­ings by say­ing Ram­ta­hal had made a writ­ten re­port about the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of the lands by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in his then func­tion as Build­ing In­spec­tor 1 with the City Cor­po­ra­tion and was asked if he stood by it. The re­port was made in Oc­to­ber 1987 and Ram­ta­hal said it was part of his nor­mal func­tions as build­ing in­spec­tor to ex­am­ine the premis­es. As a con­se­quence of the DR [Ram­ta­hal's ini­tials] re­port a no­tice was served to the Mus­limeen group for il­le­gal con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty. Ram­ta­hal said the is­sues sur­round­ing this were nev­er re­solved. Dur­ing Sinanan's cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, the lead coun­sel re­ferred to doc­u­ments (let­ters, no­tices, etc) pro­vid­ed by Ram­ta­hal and the cor­po­ra­tion. A 1969 Cab­i­net note grant­ed the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild the right to oc­cu­py lands at Mu­cu­rapo Road with the un­der­stand­ing that an Is­lam­ic cul­tur­al cen­tre would be con­struct­ed there. In 1972, coun­sel in­formed the court, the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen re­placed the Is­lam­ic Guild on the 8.8 acres of land.

Of that land, 3.4 acres be­longed to the cor­po­ra­tion. Al­though there was no of­fi­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion to show the prop­er­ty had been trans­ferred, the cor­po­ra­tion still ac­cept­ed rates and tax­es from the Mus­limeen. Ram­ta­hal coun­tered that rates and tax­es could be paid by any­one but re­ceipt of pay­ment would be gen­er­at­ed un­der the own­er's name.

Sinanan then asked if it was the pol­i­cy of the cor­po­ra­tion to ac­cept rates and tax­es from il­le­gal oc­cu­piers, to which Ram­ta­hal qui­et­ly replied, "No." He in­formed the court a num­ber of no­tices were served on the Mus­limeen but the on­ly ac­tion tak­en against the group was in 1984 for tres­pass. In that same year and af­ter a judge­ment by Jus­tice Brooks the cor­po­ra­tion of­fered the Mus­limeen a 25-year lease with the op­tion to re­new for an­oth­er 25 years. Sinanan then dis­sect­ed Ram­ta­hal's tes­ti­mo­ny through Bun­dle B (a se­ries of doc­u­ments out­lin­ing the cor­po­ra­tion's han­dling of the land mat­ter). He showed on June 21, 1990, Bakr sent a let­ter to the cor­po­ra­tion seek­ing reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion and ac­cept­ing the cor­po­ra­tion's of­fer of a lease for 25 years. Sinanan said the cor­po­ra­tion did not re­spond, nor did it seem in­ter­est­ed in dis­cussing a lease with the group. This, he said, was sub­se­quent to a meet­ing on June 18 in which the then may­or, Au­gus­tus Williams met with the Ja­maat to dis­cuss the land is­sue. Be­fore these events, in Oc­to­ber 1987, the Ja­maat ap­plied for per­mis­sion to build a school. The ap­pli­ca­tion, Sinanan ar­gued, was made on the premise of se­cur­ing 8.8 acres of land. An April 14,1989 re­port, done by Ram­ta­hal, said il­le­gal struc­tures were be­ing built on the lands. It then took the cor­po­ra­tion an en­tire year to re­spond to Ram­ta­hal's re­port (April 18, 1990) when it sent the Mus­limeen a 14-day cease-and-de­sist no­tice. Mem­bers of the com­mis­sion, who con­stant­ly in­ter­vened for clar­i­fi­ca­tion and more in­for­ma­tion, de­scribed the cor­po­ra­tion as a "tooth­less bull­dog" for its in­ac­tion.