Derek Achong

New Na­tion­al Vi­sion po­lit­i­cal leader Fuad Abu Bakr re­mained de­tained in po­lice cus­tody up to late yes­ter­day. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that while Abu Bakr, the son of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, was slapped with a set of crim­i­nal charges af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed dur­ing a protest in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, he had not ap­peared be­fore a mag­is­trate to an­swer the charges and ap­ply for bail up to 6 pm yes­ter­day. 

Guardian Me­dia was told that the charges in­clud­ed breach­ing the cur­rent COVID-19 pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions pro­hibit­ing gath­er­ings of more than 25 peo­ple, in­cit­ing a breach of the peace and ob­struct­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties. 

Con­tact­ed late yes­ter­day, Abu Bakr’s lawyer Kashif Gib­son sug­gest­ed that it was iron­ic that he was charged for an al­leged breach of the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tion based on his treat­ment at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion there­after. 

“This (Wednes­day) morn­ing I vis­it­ed him and he was in a cell with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 oth­er per­sons who were bunched up in a cell that wasn’t very large, so it was very clut­tered,” Gib­son said. 

“I guess that is the irony of the sit­u­a­tion in that you charge some­one for gath­er­ing in a group while hous­ing them for more than 24 hours in a very small space with­out a mask or prop­er san­i­tary ser­vices.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that a jus­tice of the peace was ex­pect­ed to vis­it the sta­tion to con­sid­er sta­tion bail for Abu Bakr pend­ing his court ap­pear­ance. 

In a press re­lease is­sued late Tues­day evening, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) stat­ed that 72 peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed in the protests and dis­tur­bances, which oc­curred main­ly in east Port-of-Spain and at some lo­ca­tions across T&T. The protests were sparked by the po­lice killings of Joel Ja­cob, Noel Di­a­mond and Is­rael Clin­ton at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, last Sat­ur­day.