Derek Achong

A po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to a se­ries of threats made against High Court judge Mark Mo­hammed and sev­er­al mem­bers of staff at the ju­di­cia­ry. The threats came in the form of two let­ters that were de­liv­ered to Mo­hammed and the ju­di­cia­ry's mar­shal of­fice dur­ing the re­cent­ly-con­clud­ed sedi­tion tri­al of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. The first let­ter was de­liv­ered di­rect­ly to Mo­hammed on Ju­ly 13, by an at­tor­ney par­tic­i­pat­ing in the tri­al.

The let­ter was al­leged­ly giv­en to the at­tor­ney by the wife of a man now in re­mand while await­ing tri­al for mur­der and kid­nap­ping charges. The ex­change was al­leged­ly cap­tured on CCTV cam­eras po­si­tioned out­side the High Court. The T&T Guardian was told that al­though the let­ter did not con­tain any ex­plic­it threats, it stat­ed that if Bakr were not freed of the four crim­i­nal charges, there would be se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

The let­ter was al­so said to con­tain sev­er­al Ara­bic vers­es and Is­lam­ic quo­ta­tions. Al­most three weeks af­ter the first let­ter, the sec­ond one was de­liv­ered to the mar­shal's of­fices at the Hall of Jus­tice by a man who was re­port­ed­ly wear­ing Mus­lim garb. Af­ter de­liv­er­ing the let­ter to a mar­shal in the of­fice, sources said the mes­sen­ger is­sued a ver­bal threat, warn­ing that all of the court's mar­shals should "fear for their lives."

Both let­ters bore the let­ter­head of a Is­lam­ic group which is not known to be linked to Abu Bakr or his or­gan­i­sa­tion. Af­ter the sec­ond threat, ASP Ajith Per­sad of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment (CID) was sum­moned to the court to ini­ti­ate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Per­sad has since been as­signed as lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor of the threats. At­tor­neys who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the three-month tri­al, to­geth­er with ju­di­cial sup­port staff close to the case, are ex­pect­ed to be in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors this week.

Se­nior po­lice sources said that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was put on hold dur­ing the tri­al, as it was thought that an in­tense po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion would have raised sus­pi­cion in the ju­ry room and in­flu­enced their even­tu­al ver­dicts. Since the start of the tri­al in Jan­u­ary, there has been in­creased se­cu­ri­ty at the Port-of-Spain Third Crim­i­nal Court.

A sup­ple­men­tary met­al de­tec­tor was placed at the court's en­trance and mem­bers of the pub­lic were al­so re­quired to lodge their cell­phones be­fore they were al­lowed to gain en­try in­to the court. Af­ter learn­ing of the last let­ter, which was hand-de­liv­ered to the Hall of Jus­tice, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, on Au­gust 7, Mo­hammed ex­er­cised his ju­di­cial dis­cre­tion, or­der­ing that the all-fe­male, nine-mem­ber ju­ry with six al­ter­nates be se­questered.

Dur­ing a closed cham­ber court hear­ing on that date, Mo­hammed dis­cussed the se­ques­ter­ing of the ju­ry with the at­tor­neys in the case. He re­vealed that the ju­di­cia­ry had re­ceived a sim­i­lar threat on­ly days ear­li­er. That threat, he said, came in a tele­phone call which was placed to the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court. Mo­hammed stat­ed that in­for­ma­tion of the threats be with­held from the ju­ry, say­ing that such in­for­ma­tion may cause the ju­ry's ver­dict in the mat­ter to be prej­u­diced.

Bakr's at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge protest­ed against the move to se­quester the ju­ry, say­ing that it would have neg­a­tive ef­fects on his client's case. Spe­cial state pros­e­cu­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, sup­port­ed the idea, stat­ing that the threats should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and the ju­ry should be se­questered to shield them from out­side in­ter­fer­ence for the re­main­der of the tri­al. The idea was al­so sup­port­ed by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, who was con­sult­ed be­fore Mo­hammed gave his fi­nal rul­ing.

When an­nounc­ing his de­ci­sion to the ju­ry, Mo­hammed was care­ful to note that his de­ci­sion to se­quester them was not spurred by any ac­tion from Bakr. The ju­rors were es­cort­ed to their homes to col­lect their per­son­al ef­fects by the court's mar­shals and po­lice of­fi­cers. They were then tak­en to an uniden­ti­fied ho­tel in Port-of-Spain where they stayed un­der po­lice guard un­til the tri­al con­clud­ed last Fri­day.

Even af­ter de­lib­er­at­ing for al­most five and a half hours on the last day of the tri­al, the ju­ry was un­able to come to an unan­i­mous ver­dict on the charges against Bakr. When the time had elapsed, Mo­hammed thanked the ju­rors for their work dur­ing the tri­al and dis­charged them. He then or­dered that Bakr be re­tried for the of­fences.

Bakr, 70, of La Puer­ta,?Diego Mar­tin, still faces charges of mak­ing a state­ment with a sedi­tious in­tent, en­deav­our­ing to pro­voke a breach of the peace, in­cit­ing oth­ers to de­mand mon­ey from the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and for­mer In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) pres­i­dent Bro No­ble Khan by men­ace. The charges stem from?Bakr's con­tro­ver­sial Eid-ul-Fitr ser­mon which was de­liv­ered at the Ja­maat's Mu­cu­rapo Road, St?James mosque on No­vem­ber 4, 2005.

The mat­ter will be placed on the cause list of the Port-of-Spain As­sizes un­til a date for the tri­al is set by the courts.