Yvonne Ba­boolal

For­mer Ja­maat al Mus­limeen sec­ond in com­mand, Bi­lal Ab­dul­lah, who led some 20 Mus­lims in an at­tack on the Red House on Ju­ly 27, 1990, ap­peared to be in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with cer­tain peo­ple out­side, in­clud­ing per­sons linked to the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, while he held Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and oth­ers hostage in the Par­lia­ment cham­ber. This was dis­closed by Joseph Toney, for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in 1990 and Red House hostage, as he gave ev­i­dence in the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the events sur­round­ing the at­tempt­ed coup be­ing held at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

"I got the im­pres­sion he was speak­ing to Abu Bakr (Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader) at Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (scene of an­oth­er at­tack) and cer­tain peo­ple in the coun­try," he said. Toney said at one time, Ab­dul­lah told peo­ple in the Red House a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter had called for for­eign in­ter­ven­tion. The Mus­limeen in­sur­gents had made the Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters they were hold­ing hostage sign a doc­u­ment stat­ing that no for­eign in­ter­ven­tion was to be al­lowed in the af­fairs of T&T and they felt be­trayed, he said. At an­oth­er point dur­ing the in­sur­rec­tion, he added, Ab­dul­lah ap­peared to be in con­tact with se­cu­ri­ty forces out­side or some­one linked to them.

The army had sur­round­ed the Red House and was shoot­ing at any­thing look­ing like a Mus­limeen rebel and the Mus­limeen were fir­ing at any­thing look­ing like a sol­dier, he said. Toney told the com­mis­sion that Ab­dul­lah dis­closed in the Red House dur­ing the hostage cri­sis that the se­cu­ri­ty forces out­side were try­ing to bring the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. Ab­dul­lah said some mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces did not like that idea and were fir­ing with­out di­rec­tion from su­per­vi­sors, Toney said. Ab­dul­lah de­scribed these sol­diers as "delin­quent", he said.

He told the hostages that as they went out, it was quite pos­si­ble there would be sniper fire from these delin­quent sol­diers, Toney added. He fur­ther told the com­mis­sion that af­ter the coup at­tempt, when he was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter in the NAR Gov­ern­ment, in­for­ma­tion came to him that cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als as­sist­ed the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen dur­ing the up­ris­ing. He said the mat­ter was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by Spe­cial Branch who had tapes of con­ver­sa­tions of per­sons sus­pect­ed of as­sist­ing the Ja­maat. Asked if he got a re­port on the re­sults of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Toney said: "I was told ver­bal­ly the in­ves­ti­ga­tions did not bear fruit.'

He said while they were held hostage, he got a mes­sage to his wife via tele­phone, and asked her to get the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans out­side to help them go home. He added: "Those on the out­side took a de­ci­sion not to both­er with us. They couldn't care less. They were eat­ing and drink­ing at the Hilton. If we were killed, so be it. "This was the mes­sage that was re­layed back to me from Ab­dul­lah." Toney said af­ter he was re­leased he was told that was a tac­tic used by those ad­vis­ing the gov­ern­ment. "I was told they were play­ing for time to wear down the cap­tors," he said.Fur­ther, then UNC MP, John Humphrey, caused the hostages to be kept in the Red House an­oth­er day, Toney said.

He said the Mus­limeen were get­ting ready to re­lease the hostages when Humphrey told Ab­dul­lah: "Get that in writ­ing. Re­mem­ber what hap­pened with the sol­diers. "We stayed an­oth­er day," Toney said. "My col­leagues were quite up­set. They won­dered which side he was on." Toney, telling of his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, said when the Mus­limeen asked for a lawyer to start ne­go­ti­a­tions, he had to crawl on his bel­ly across the floor, with his hands tied, while gun­shots aimed at the Red House rang out from sol­diers out­side.

He said he joined Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, Win­ston Dook­er­an and John Humphrey, and Ab­dul­lah and an­oth­er Mus­limeen in­sur­gent to start ne­go­ti­a­tions. Ne­go­ti­a­tion and dis­cus­sion were strange words to de­scribe what hap­pened, he told the com­mis­sion. Toney said the Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters ne­go­ti­at­ed with the Mus­limeen while they were bound and had guns to their heads and shots were fir­ing all around.

"At the end of the day what the man with the gun want­ed, he got," he said. Toney said his job was to sim­ply write down what was agreed to and crawl around get­ting sig­na­tures from fel­low Gov­ern­ment MPs.

He said he asked the rebels to un­tie his hands so he could write and got the sig­na­tures from MPs who were bloody and in pain. One of the terms of agree­ment was the Mus­limeen's de­mand for an amnesty.

"All my le­gal in­stincts told me these things would have been thrown in the wastepa­per bas­ket," Toney told the com­mis­sion. "The court would not up­hold it." Toney will give ev­i­dence again next Thurs­day.