Derek Achong

New Na­tion­al Vi­sion po­lit­i­cal leader Fuad Abu Bakr has been re­leased on $75,000 bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with six crim­i­nal of­fences aris­ing out of his al­leged role in two re­cent protests in Port-of-Spain. 

Abu Bakr, who was ar­rest­ed while en­gaged in a protest against po­lice bru­tal­i­ty at Pic­cadil­ly Street in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, was grant­ed bail af­ter mak­ing a vir­tu­al court ap­pear­ance be­fore Mag­is­trate In­dar Ja­groo from the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

Abu Bakr, the son of Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, was slapped with four charges over his role in a Black Lives Mat­ter (BLM) protest out­side the Unit­ed States Em­bassy on June 8 and two charges re­lat­ed to this week's protests, sparked by the death of three men from Mor­vant, who were shot dead by po­lice over the week­end. 

Abu Bakr was slapped with three charges for as­sault­ing PC Clint Smith and one charge for ob­struct­ing Smith from per­form­ing his du­ties at the BLM protest. 

Ac­cord­ing to the sum­ma­ry of ev­i­dence, which was dis­closed to Abu Bakr's de­fence at­tor­neys, he is ac­cused of re­peat­ed­ly push­ing and block­ing Smith as he (Smith) was at­tempt­ing to film the protest. 

Ian Smart, the son of for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al An­tho­ny Smart, was al­so cap­tured on video re­mov­ing Smith's hat, run­ning away, and rais­ing his mid­dle fin­ger to­wards Smith, when he at­tempt­ed to re­trieve the item. 

Smart apol­o­gised af­ter the in­ci­dent and was in­ter­viewed by of­fi­cers, who were as­signed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to in­ves­ti­gate. Guardian Me­dia could not con­firm if he too was sub­se­quent­ly charged.

Abu Bakr was al­so charged with us­ing vi­o­lent lan­guage to in­cite oth­ers to breach the peace at Tues­day's protest.  

Abu Bakr is al­leged to have told fel­low demon­stra­tors: "All yuh come let's block the road they can't stop us, no jus­tice no peace."

He was joint­ly charged with east Port-of-Spain res­i­dents Jahim Cud­joe, Eli­jah Ri­ley, and Shaquille James with breach­ing on­go­ing COVID-19 pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions by gath­er­ing in a group larg­er than 25 per­sons. The of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $50,000 fine and six months in prison. 

Abu Bakr plead­ed not guilty to all six charges. As part of the con­di­tions of his bail, Abu Bakr was or­dered to re­port to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion, twice week­ly, for the du­ra­tion of his case.

Abu Bakr's court ap­pear­ance came hours af­ter as his lawyers Criston J Williams and Kashif Gib­son filed a habeas cor­pus writ call­ing on po­lice chal­leng­ing his lengthy de­ten­tion with­out ap­pear­ing in court. The law­suit had to be with­drawn af­ter his even­tu­al court ap­pear­ance. 

Abu Bakr is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Ju­ly 30.