The debt owed to the State by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr and the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen, to date, for dam­age to prop­er­ty dur­ing the Ju­ly, 1990 at­tempt­ed coup is more than $40 mil­lion.

This fig­ure is based on the judg­ment de­liv­ered last Fri­day by Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine in High Court Ac­tion No 2292 of 1994, be­tween Bakr and the Mus­limeen, on the one hand, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, on the oth­er. Nar­ine ruled that the State could col­lect its debt from the sale of 11 prop­er­ties owned, or part-owned, by Bakr. There is a 14-day stay on the prop­er­ties–from Sep­tem­ber 11–which will be sold by auc­tion. A val­u­a­tion done in Feb­ru­ary, 2006, put the val­ue of the prop­er­ties at around $23 mil­lion.

Bakr's debt stood at $31.6 mil­lion at the date of the sum­mons for the court ac­tion, Feb­ru­ary 6, 2006. At in­ter­est of $6,480.30 a day, an ad­di­tion­al $8.4 mil­lion is to be added on to bring it up to date.

Last Fri­day, Nar­ine fur­ther di­rect­ed that an af­fi­davit filed by Bakr, de­tail­ing an al­leged agree­ment with Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, be sent to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) and the act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for their con­sid­er­a­tion.

Nar­ine said Bakr's af­fi­davit stat­ed that the Ja­maat leader spoke and met with Man­ning, Lar­ry Achong, Joan Yuille-Williams and Mar­tin Joseph, be­fore the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Bakr, it was agreed that–among oth­er things–the State would not en­force the pay­ment of dam­ages against the Ja­maat.

Ef­forts yes­ter­day to con­tact Bakr in Eng­land, where he is with his daugh­ter, who is due to start uni­ver­si­ty stud­ies, were fu­tile, as he did not re­turn mes­sages. A tele­vi­sion re­port last night stat­ed that the file con­tain­ing the Privy Coun­cil judge­ment was for­ward­ed to the CoP in May. Yes­ter­day, when con­tact­ed, Joseph said he was not in a po­si­tion to com­ment. " I have now land­ed so I have not had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fa­mil­iarise my­self with any­thing. Give me a chance to set­tle and I will give you a re­sponse."

–re­port­ing by Pe­ter Bal­roop

Prop­er­ties to be sold:

? La Puer­ta in Diego Mar­tin–five-and-a-half acres of land owned by Bakr and his nephew Gary Phillip. A build­ing be­long­ing to Bakr's wife Anisa Abu Bakr is on the land.

? An apart­ment com­plex at Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James–a two-storey build­ing with apart­ments on more than a lot of land.

? Build­ing at 10 Park Av­enue, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on a lot of land–half of prop­er­ty owned by Bakr, the oth­er half by for­mer Ja­maat mem­ber Ahamad Ali.

? Four parcels of land in In­di­an Trail Cou­va–4 hectares, 2.45 hectares, 2.45 hectares, 5 hectares.

? A plot of land in Mara­bel­la.

? A small par­cel of land in Ma­yaro which was pur­chased from Ato Boldon's fa­ther.

? Cou­ple acres of land in Diego Mar­tin.

? Land in Mara­bel­la (1,000 square me­tres), pur­chased from his moth­er-in-law, Dul­cie Bho­lai.

? 2.6 hectares of land at Las Cuevas owned by Kala Akii Bua.

? A plot of land in Mara­bel­la.

ABOVE: The build­ing at the front of the five-acre Ja­maat spread owned by Bakr and his nephew, Gary Phillip, at the top of a dog leg hill ac­cessed through Wil­son Lane in La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin. One of Bakr's wives, Anisa, al­so lives on the land, with a breath­tak­ing view of West­moor­ings and the Gulf of Paria.

BE­LOW: No hu­mans were vis­i­ble, but birds in cages and cur­tains flut­ter­ing in half-open win­dows were to be seen yes­ter­day in the two-storey build­ing in which Imam Yasin Abu Bakr has an in­ter­est at 10 Park Av­enue, Queen's Park East, Port-of-Spain. Pho­tos: Kei­th Matthews