An­na-Lisa Paul

The pro­tec­tive ser­vices were placed on high alert yes­ter­day af­ter a let­ter claim­ing that co-or­di­nat­ed at­tacks were be­ing planned by the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen to free the 11 men charged in the death of Dana See­ta­hal, SC, and those sim­i­lar­ly ac­cused in the on­go­ing Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man tri­al be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line.

The memo, which was is­sued by Head of the Spe­cial Branch, came two days af­ter the 11 men ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court charged with See­ta­hal's mur­der and be­ing mem­bers of a gang.Fol­low­ing the death of ac­cused Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin dur­ing a dar­ing jail­break from the Roy­al Jail, Port-of-Spain, last Fri­day, 11 peo­ple re­main be­fore the court charged with the 2006 kid­nap­ping and mur­der of the Xtra Foods chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

A copy of the in­ter­nal memo is­sued by the head of the Spe­cial Branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice on Tues­day, which warned of sev­er­al ter­ror at­tacks and threats to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty posed by the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen, was leaked to the pub­lic yes­ter­day.The memo claimed that mem­bers of the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen were mov­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion to lo­ca­tions in north Trinidad and San Fer­nan­do and that planned at­tacks were to com­mence im­me­di­ate­ly.

There was al­so a claim that the pri­vate res­i­dences of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at Philip­pine and Siparia al­so would be tar­get­ed.Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Carl Al­fon­so con­firmed that the memo, which be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing short­ly af­ter mid­day, had gone vi­ral and that "every­one has seen it."

As the memo cir­cu­lat­ed via so­cial me­dia, mem­bers of the pub­lic again pan­icked and be­gan to ques­tion if there was any truth to it.At the time it be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing, Al­fon­so said act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Crime) Glen Hack­ett had been man­dat­ed to as­cer­tain if the doc­u­ment was au­then­tic.

Williams sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed the memo was au­then­tic at a press con­fer­ence.Dat­ed Ju­ly 28, 2015, the memo was ad­dressed to all field sec­tion heads and the sub­ject read: "JA­MAAT AL MUS­LIMEEN - AC­TIV­I­TIES OF."The four-para­graph memo read as fol­lows:

"In­for­ma­tion has been ob­tained that the JA­MAAT AL MUS­LIMEEN (JAM) is plan­ning ac­tiv­i­ties in­im­i­cal to the State. They are said to be mov­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion to the north and San Fer­nan­do.

"Re­port­ed­ly, they are plan­ning to tar­get the Prime Min­is­ter's pri­vate res­i­dence at PHILIP­PINE and SIPARIA. More­over, they are al­so plan­ning a se­ries of co-or­di­nat­ed at­tack and will at­tempt to free the 11 per­sons charged with the mur­der of Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal and those charged in the Vin­dra NAIPAUL-COLE­MAN case.

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, they will tar­get po­lice sta­tions that have been car­ry­ing out op­er­a­tions against. These ac­tiv­i­ties are like­ly to com­mence im­me­di­ate­ly.

"You are re­quired to de­ter­mine the ve­rac­i­ty of this in­for­ma­tion and re­port your find­ings in­stant­ly."

But in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse as the memo was cir­cu­lat­ing on­line, Ja­maat leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr is­sued a press re­lease call­ing on the Po­lice Ser­vice to clar­i­fy the au­then­tic­i­ty of the doc­u­ment.The re­lease said the Ja­maat had re­ceived "un­con­firmed in­di­ca­tions that it did not em­anate from the TTPS."

Urg­ing the TTPS "to act with­in the con­straints of the law and to take every pre­cau­tion to avoid dis­crim­i­na­tion against Mus­lims," Abu Bakr sought to re­as­sure the na­tion that his or­gan­i­sa­tion posed no threat to the peo­ple of this coun­try.He wrote: "There is no threat to the pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Ja­maat-al- Mus­limeen.

"Our is­sues are be­ing dealt with legal­ly. There ap­pears to be per­sons spread­ing ru­mours with a view to caus­ing mis­chief to desta­bilise our coun­try. As a peo­ple, we need to stand unit­ed and to sup­port each oth­er."Abu Bakr was de­tained by po­lice around 5 am on Ju­ly 20 in con­nec­tion with the See­ta­hal probe but re­leased two days lat­er with­out be­ing charged.

A re­lease from the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) around 4.30 pm al­so in­di­cat­ed it was made aware of the memo which had been cir­cu­lat­ing via so­cial me­dia.Ad­vis­ing that the con­tents of the memo had been re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion of Williams, the NOC said it is "not aware and has been re­li­ably in­formed by the in­tel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty that as of this time, there is no in­tel­li­gence to cor­rob­o­rate the in­for­ma­tion con­tained in the said memo on so­cial me­dia."

The NOC al­so as­sured that all arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices had up­grad­ed their vig­i­lance and were op­er­at­ing on a height­ened state of alert­ness and ready and ca­pa­ble to re­spond to any sit­u­a­tion that may arise.It urged the pub­lic to re­main calm but vig­i­lant and ap­pealed that "if you see some­thing, say some­thing, and if you know some­thing, do some­thing about it."

The NOC said in the event of any sit­u­a­tion that threat­ens pub­lic safe­ty or was like­ly to cause a breach of the law or dis­or­der, peo­ple can call 999; 555 or the near­est po­lice sta­tion.