McNicolls absent from court

ATTORNEY Pamela Elder SC was yesterday unable to complete her closing address in defence of her client Imam Yasin Abu Bakr because Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc-Nicolls was not at court. After months of hearing evidence from witnesses, the magistrate was yesterday scheduled to hear the completion of Elder’s submission and that of Deputy DPP Carla Brown-Antoine. Elder had begun her submission on March 26.

Clerk of the Peace Eugene Prince was therefore summoned to adjourn all the cases that were listed to be heard by McNicolls. Since the magistrate had not suggested a convenient date to resume the Imam’s hearing, Prince, Elder and Brown-Antoine agreed on April 14. Bakr, 62, was charged on August 21, 2003, with conspiring with others to murder two expelled members of the Jamaat at Citrine Drive in Diego Martin.

One of the men, Salim “Small Salim” Rasheed and another man, Adil Ghani, were shot and wounded at the Movie Towne cineplex on June 4, 2003. Ghani’s common-law-wife, Jillia Bowen, was shot dead. The charge was laid by Cpl Jayson Forde, at-tached to the Port-of-Spain Homicide Bureau of Investigation.