‘Don’t judge Bakr for 1990’

THE conspiracy to murder trial of Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr is heading for a close with the final addresses to the jury. The trial started on January 4. The first out of the starting blocks was lead defence attorney Pamela Elder SC, who closed her case yesterday morning, and started her final address to the jury. But when hearing ended at 2.55 pm, Elder told Justice Mark Mohammed in the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court, “Mi Lord, I have only just begun.” Elder told the packed and silent court that Bakr must not be judged on the attempted coup of 1990, but on the State’s poor evidence in this trial. She asked the jury, “Would you take the approach, that Abu Bakr led a coup in 1990, that in 2005 he is before you charged with conspiracy to murder, then he is guilty?”

She told the jury that if they adopted this approach, they would be just as the State’s main witnesses Brent Miller and Brent Danglade, whom she described as bandits and accomplices. Elder described the investigations as not only a joke but a scandal. She said that when the trial is over, someone should call for an inquiry into the conduct of the police and the grant of immunity. She pointed out that Brent Miller received an immunity the day before he was scheduled to give evidence in the preliminary inquiry in the Magistrates’ Court. “I want to know when did Brent Miller decided to give evidence in this case. I have asked, but the DPP has not given me an answer,” Elder added.

Elder’s address to the jury followed the last defence witness Lindsay Harnanan, the IT manager at TSTT. Harnanan said he was requested by the defence to make inquiries as to what Code 441 on a fraud detection system report meant. He made those inquiries by calling the mobile department at TSTT and conveyed the results to the defence. He had no reason to believe that the information he passed on was inaccurate. Harnanan said when he communicated the information, he was not familiar with the cell site numbers, therefore he was not sure it was completely accurate. He said he received information that 441 meant a cell site in Chatham.

Cross-examined by lead prosecutor Sir Timothy Cassel QC, Harnanan said the first time he was asked to check what 441 really meant was in February, 2005. He called two persons in the mobile department. He was told that 441 referred to a cell site called Chatham. But since then, he found out that 441 was meaningless and did not refer to any cell site, Chatham nor Biche. Cassel asked, “When was the first time you found out that the information you got was wrong?” Harnanan replied, “When I read in the papers that the information was wrong about the cell site.” Elder may take the rest of today, leaving Cassel to respond tomorrow. (See Pages 17, 18, 23, and 24)