For­mer head of the Po­lice Spe­cial Branch Mervyn Guis­sep­pi says he had ab­solute­ly no doubt in his mind that an up­ris­ing by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen was im­mi­nent in 1990. Guis­sep­pi, a for­mer as­sis­tant po­lice com­mis­sion­er, made the dis­clo­sure yes­ter­day as he gave ev­i­dence be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 27, 1990 at­tempt­ed over­throw of the gov­ern­ment by Mus­limeen in­sur­gents. He said he and oth­er of­fi­cers in the Spe­cial Branch knew that a coup d'etat was im­mi­nent based on in­tel­li­gence they ob­tained about the Mus­limeen over sev­er­al years.

"The on­ly thing we could not say that it would oc­cur on Ju­ly 27 at 6 pm and what form it would take. "But we knew it was com­ing," Guis­sep­pi said. He said the di­vi­sion had sources with­in the Ja­maat who would give them "bits and pieces" of in­for­ma­tion. He said in­for­ma­tion came to them about a meet­ing for­mer Ja­maat sec­ond in com­mand Bi­lal Ab­dul­lah had with eight mem­bers of the or­gan­i­sa­tion in 1989. Ab­dul­lah, who led the at­tack on the Red House dur­ing the up­ris­ing, was re­port­ed to have said they were look­ing at ear­ly 1990 to stage the over­throw.

At the meet­ing, Ab­dul­lah in­di­cat­ed that Ja­maat leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr was in Libya and that he was ne­go­ti­at­ing for arms and am­mu­ni­tion and was seek­ing to in­crease the num­ber of mer­ce­nar­ies who would sup­port them, Guis­sep­pi told the com­mis­sion. In­for­mants al­so re­port­ed to the Spe­cial Branch that Ab­dul­lah was pre­oc­cu­pied with how large quan­ti­ties of arms and am­mu­ni­tion could come in­to the coun­try. Bakr boast­ed in 1989 that the Ja­maat's re­cruit­ment dri­ve had peaked to 400 mem­bers, Guis­sep­pi added. He said the re­cruit­ment was done most­ly through ex­hor­ta­tion dur­ing ser­vices at the mosque through an "each one bring one" method.

There were about eight for­mer mem­bers of the De­fence Force in the Ja­maat and four or five ex-po­lice of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the train­ing of the Mus­limeen. Train­ing was con­duct­ed se­cret­ly in forest­ed ar­eas of Rio Claro, Cu­mu­to, Cumaca, To­co, Blan­chisseusse and at the Ja­maat's #1 Mu­cu­rapo Road com­pound, Guis­sep­pi dis­closed. Fur­ther, 25 Ja­maat mem­bers were sent to Libya for train­ing. Spe­cial Branch, through re­ports, told the Prime Min­is­ter and the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter who they were, when they left the coun­try, what kind of train­ing they did and when they re­turned to T&T, Guis­sep­pi said. In an Oc­to­ber 1989 meet­ing with se­nior Ja­maat per­sons, mem­bers of the Munroe Road mosque in Cunu­pia spoke about col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Mus­limeen and train­ing with them.

The Munroe Road mosque promised to sup­port the Ja­maat's over­throw the gov­ern­ment, Guis­sep­pi said. Guis­sep­pi said "from ear­ly" Spe­cial Branch knew that the Ja­maat re­ceived large sums of mon­ey from Libya which Bakr was pos­si­bly bring­ing back to T&T on sev­er­al trips. The Ja­maat al­so re­ceived do­na­tions from af­flu­ent Mus­lims in T&T and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and through "tax­ing" drug deal­ers. A Mus­limeen called "Buffy", whom he de­scribed as a prin­ci­pal ac­tivist, brought in as much as $400,000 in one week by tax­ing six drug deal­ers, Guis­sep­pi added. He said it was be­lieved that Buffy was the one who in­tro­duced the spate of kid­nap­pings that rocked T&T post-1990.