Gail Alexan­der

A five-mem­ber pan­el, head­ed by re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim, will seek to trace the mas­ter­mind of the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed coup and as­cer­tain if any pub­lic or state of­fi­cials were in­volved. In a state­ment to Par­lia­ment on the com­mis­sion of en­quiry yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to the 1990 event as a "con­spir­a­cy to over­thow the gov­ern­ment of the time." She warned of pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion against those cul­pa­ble, aris­ing from the up­com­ing en­quiry.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "Let me un­equiv­o­cal­ly state that what­ev­er is found no one would be above the law... if there is ev­i­dence of wrong-do­ing wher­ev­er it may be, that will be ad­dressed by our courts."

She added: "I think it is time the Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed that once the en­quiry re­veals any ev­i­dence of wrong-do­ing, con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to pros­e­cut­ing those cul­pa­ble. "Of course it will de­pend on what ev­i­dence is found by the com­mis­sion. Mur­der, for ex­am­ple, is not a statute-barred of­fence." Com­mis­sion chair­man Ibrahim served in the Supreme Court of T&T and the Ba­hamas.

Oth­er mem­bers of the com­mis­sion are:

�2 For­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor and so­cial ac­tivist Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att:

�2 Dr H A Mo­hammed, an in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant and US war vet­er­an;

�2 Dr Richard Chel­tenhan, QC, a lead­ing crim­i­nal lawyer of Bar­ba­dos who had head­ed the probe con­cern­ing for­mer Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Mitchell; and,

�2 For­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr East­lyn McKen­zie.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­quiry would bring much need­ed clo­sure and "ex­pose the con­spir­a­cy that led to the tem­po­rary over­throw of the du­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of the day. She said: "Per­haps this in­quiry may un­earth the truth be­hind the con­spir­a­cy that led to this coup. "Why an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry was not in­sti­tut­ed years ago, out­side of the court pro­ceed­ings in­volv­ing Abu Bakr and his Mus­limeen dis­ci­ples, re­mains a mys­tery." The team's terms of ref­er­ence are very wide, delv­ing in­to the roles of all in­volved in the six-day siege of the T&T Par­lia­ment. On crit­i­cisms about hav­ing the probe 20 years af­ter the event, Per­sad-Bisses­sar cit­ed ex­am­ples of in­quiries held years af­ter events. Those in­clud­ed Ire­land, Cana­da, Uraguay and Suri­name, she said.

She said in Suri­name, Colonel De­si Bouterse was now open­ly demon­strat­ing re­grets and seek­ing pub­lic for­give­ness for his in­volve­ment in a 1980 coup against the gov­ern­ment there. Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "This is in stark con­trast to the lack of apol­o­gy and ab­sence of re­morse from the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen." Re­peat­ed­ly ques­tion­ing why the Ju­ly 27 coup at­tempt oc­curred, Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked if there was a re­la­tion­ship be­tween what hap­pened then and the present wave of gun-re­lat­ed crime. "Who is sup­ply­ing these weapons and how are they com­ing in­to T&T – is there a link?" she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it is hoped the com­mis­sion would make rec­om­men­da­tions to en­sure counter-ter­ror­ism poli­cies and ap­pro­pri­ate mech­a­nisms are in place to thwart/man­age an in­sur­rec­tion. The team al­so will make rec­om­men­da­tions to en­sure diplo­mat­ic and me­dia re­spons­es are ap­pro­pri­ate in the cir­cum­stances. Rec­om­men­da­tions will be made on mech­a­nisms to treat with so­cial/po­lit­i­cal mat­ters that can in­cite in­sur­rec­tion. Oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions will be ex­pect­ed on for­ti­fy­ing im­mi­gra­tion/cus­toms con­trol and bor­ders as well as en­sur­ing state build­ing are pro­tect­ed from threats. The com­mis­sion will be a pub­lic in­quiry. The team will have the dis­cre­tion to de­ter­mine whether to sit whol­ly or from time-to-time in pri­vate. The team's re­port will be sent to the Pres­i­dent.