Fran­cis Joseph

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard is not pre­pared to let the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the con­tro­ver­sial af­fi­davit of Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr die a slow death. With the is­sue back in the pub­lic do­main last week, af­ter be­ing dor­mant for months, Gas­pard wants an ex­pe­di­tious in­ves­ti­ga­tion "of this mat­ter of grave pub­lic im­por­tance." Gas­pard sent a mem­o­ran­dum, dat­ed March 19, to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice James Philbert. This fol­lowed Philbert's let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 13, 2009, to Gas­pard (who was act­ing DPP at the time) and the re­cent dis­cus­sions be­tween the two men. Gas­pard's let­ter read: "Hav­ing re­gard to the di­rec­tives that I would have oral­ly giv­en to you and your team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors, in the wake of your afore­men­tioned mem­o­ran­dum, I re­spect­ful­ly re­quest that you fur­nish me with a sta­tus re­port in this mat­ter. "Fur­ther, I would be deeply grate­ful if you were to pro­vide me with such a re­port by the 26th in­stant (this Fri­day)."

The DPP as­sured Philbert that he was avail­able to pro­vide any as­sis­tance or ad­vice in the mat­ter. Sources said since as­sum­ing the post of DPP ear­li­er this month, Gas­pard held dis­cus­sions with Philbert and the head of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­tiga­tive Bu­reau, Se­nior Supt Ter­ry Young, to dis­cuss sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing the Bakr af­fi­davit and the Calder Hart mat­ter–re: al­leged links with fam­i­ly mem­bers and con­tracts giv­en to CH De­vel­op­ment. The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that Gas­pard had not been too pleased with the way the po­lice have been drag­ging their feet on the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the af­fi­davit. Af­ter the meet­ing be­tween Gas­pard and the po­lice, in­ves­ti­ga­tors have picked up speed, go­ing to sev­er­al peo­ple, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, tak­ing state­ments to de­ter­mine whether any of­fences were com­mit­ted.

On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2009, Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine di­rect­ed that Bakr's af­fi­davit de­tail­ing an al­leged agree­ment with Man­ning be sent to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for their con­sid­er­a­tion. Nar­ine said the mat­ter caused him some mea­sure of con­cern. He made ref­er­ence to parts of the af­fi­davit, al­though he em­pha­sised that he held no view, or made any find­ing with re­spect to the truth of the al­le­ga­tions con­tained in the doc­u­ment. Nar­ine de­liv­ered a 27-page judg­ment in which he or­dered that 11 prop­er­ties be­long­ing to Bakr and se­nior Ja­maat mem­ber Kala Akii Bua be put up for pub­lic auc­tion to sat­is­fy a $32 mil­lion debt ow­ing to the State for the de­struc­tion of Po­lice Head­quar­ters dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. Dur­ing the hear­ing of the sum­mons for sale ap­pli­ca­tion, Nar­ine ad­mit­ted the af­fi­davit in­to ev­i­dence. On an ap­pli­ca­tion of the AG, the Court of Ap­peal struck out the doc­u­ment and Bakr went to the Privy Coun­cil.

The British Law Lords, on May 5, 2009, ruled that the af­fi­davit should be struck out for ir­rel­e­vance, but in the course of his judg­ment, Lord Car­swell, who de­liv­ered the opin­ion of the Privy Coun­cil, re­ferred ex­ten­sive­ly to its con­tents. Car­swell stat­ed that the essence of the agree­ment be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and Abu Bakr "was that cer­tain ad­van­tages would be giv­en to the Ja­maat out of State prop­er­ty, in re­turn for se­cur­ing vot­ing sup­port for the Prime Min­is­ter's po­lit­i­cal par­ty. "In the opin­ion of the Board, this was cor­rupt with­in the mean­ing and in­tend­ment of Sec­tion 3 of the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act, and each par­ty to the agree­ment was act­ing in con­tra­ven­tion of the sec­tion," Car­swell said. In ref­er­ence to the Privy Coun­cil's judg­ment, Nar­ine said: "These are the pro­nounce­ments of the high­est court in this ju­ris­dic­tion...Yet, as far as the court is aware, no ac­tion has been tak­en by the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties to con­duct a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion of these al­le­ga­tions.

"The al­le­ga­tions made by the sec­ond de­fen­dant (Bakr) are ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous...If they are true, they strike at the heart of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem of gov­ern­ment," he said. "If the al­le­ga­tions are true, the Prime Min­is­ter made promis­es of state re­sources to the leader of an or­gan­i­sa­tion which had made an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to over­throw the du­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of the coun­try, in re­turn for the Ja­maat's lever­age in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies (dur­ing the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion)." Ac­cord­ing to Nar­ine, 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.

?What the af­fi­davit states

?Ac­cord­ing to Bakr, it was agreed that:

1. The re­main­ing lands at Mu­cu­rapo would be trans­ferred to the Ja­maat.

2. The Mu­cu­rapo Is­lam­ic Col­lege would be in­clud­ed in the con­cor­dat and would re­ceive fund­ing from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

3. The State would not en­force the pay­ment of dam­ages against the Ja­maat.

In con­sid­er­a­tion of these promis­es, Bakr said the Ja­maat agreed to, among oth­er things:

1. Work with­in the crime-rid­den ar­eas to bring about a re­duc­tion in crime.

2. Work with­in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies to mo­bilise young peo­ple to vote.

3. The Ja­maat would pub­licly come out in sup­port of the rul­ing par­ty and would en­dorse the PNM for re-elec­tion.

Bakr said that af­ter the elec­tion, Man­ning failed to ho­n­our any of the oblig­a­tions un­der the agree­ment, es­pe­cial­ly the agree­ment not to en­force the judg­ment against the Ja­maat.

The is­sue

?The back­ground to the case was the armed oc­cu­pa­tion by mem­bers of the Ja­maat in 1990 of the Red House and TTT. The com­plex sub­se­quent his­to­ry led to two suc­cess­ful ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil in re­la­tion to crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions. The Ja­maat sued the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in two ac­tions and ob­tained an award for dam­ages in each, the amounts be­ing some $2 mil­lion and $700,000 or there­abouts, re­spec­tive­ly. Then in 1994, the Gov­ern­ment com­menced pro­ceed­ings against the in­sur­gents and Bakr, claim­ing dam­ages for tres­pass and dam­age to, and/or de­struc­tion of prop­er­ty of the State at the time of the in­sur­rec­tion.

On Sep­tem­ber 6, 1996, the Gov­ern­ment ob­tained judg­ment in de­fault of de­fence for dam­ages to be as­sessed. On Jan­u­ary 15, 2001, dam­ages were as­sessed by Jus­tice Joseph Tam in the sum of $15 mil­lion, with in­ter­est. The debt stands at $32 mil­lion. On Feb­ru­ary 6, 2006, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is­sued a sum­mons on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment, pur­suant to the Reme­dies Against Cred­i­tors Act, for the sale of 11 parcels of land. On June 8, 2006, Bakr filed an af­fi­davit in op­po­si­tion to the sum­mons, rais­ing a ma­jor is­sue by way of de­fence to the claim.