Yvonne Ba­boolal

The po­lice were alert­ed by Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­gents that they were go­ing to blow up Po­lice Head­quar­ters on the af­ter­noon of Ju­ly 27, 1990.This was dis­closed by Ja­maat mem­ber Ja­maal Shabazz yes­ter­day as he gave ev­i­dence be­fore the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the at­tempt­ed coup d'etat at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, i"The po­lice were alert­ed. There was am­ple time, if they fol­lowed in­struc­tions, to evac­u­ate the build­ing," Shabazz told the com­mis­sion.He said he found out af­ter the coup the Ja­maat had more car bombs which could have had a much more dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect but which they did not use.Shabazz told the com­mis­sion Ja­maat leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, was a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer and per­son­al­ly knew some se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers with whom he kept in con­tact.

He al­so said there was a lot of dis­sen­sion in the ranks of the Po­lice Ser­vice pri­or to the coup at­tempt.Shabazz said Ja­maat mem­bers did pri­or train­ing in the Mid­dle East and with their own para­mil­i­tary group, the Guardians of Is­lam."We trained in the forest­ed heights in Trinidad about two to three months be­fore the coup at­tempt." he said.Ques­tioned by lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan he de­nied he knew where the guns used in the up­ris­ing came from or where they were kept.

He said he and some of the "younger broth­ers" nev­er thought they would have end­ed up in a long, drawn-out bat­tle with the armed forces."We were told by the Ja­maat lead­er­ship that the army was in sup­port of us and would not come out and com­bat us." he added.He said he al­so be­lieved the Sum­mit of the Peo­ple's Or­gan­i­sa­tion (SOPO) would sup­port the up­ris­ing.He said he felt if they were suc­cess­ful some kind of coali­tion gov­ern­ment would have been set up to gov­ern T&T.