Bakr’s little army

BRITISH Queen’s Counsel Sir Timothy Cassel kept his promise. He held court for one hour and 56 minutes yesterday, not only addressing the jury, but a packed gallery and a Bar table with lawyers and another area with law students. It was an anti-climax to the proceedings, as all that is left now is for the judge to sum up the case to the jury. Cassel, the lead prosecutor in the conspiracy to murder trial of Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, made no bones about it. The State’s two main witnesses — Brent Miller and Brent Danglade were men of bad character, capable of committing serious crimes of violence, and they came from the underworld.

Cassel wanted to know what was the Jamaat Al Muslimeen, the organisation headed by the accused. He wanted to go behind the walls of Mucurapo Road to see what Bakr, the man who led the 1990 coup, headed. “He is a Jamaat leader who had threatened one of the wounded men with fasifilard on a radio programme the week before the Movie Towne shooting. “A man who was in command of men who could be described as a little army. Who drilled them and taught them to march. “The man who made members of his organisation take an oath of allegiance to him, a man whose orders were expected to be obeyed on pain of physical punishment. A man who had an obvious motive,” the British QC added.

Cassel told the jury that Miller and Danglade, along with David “Buffy” Millard (who has since disappeared) were members of the Muslimeen although this was denied by Bakr in his defence. He said the only one who had a motive for the shooting of Salim Rasheed and Zaki Aubaidah was the accused himself. He said Bakr, who had the authority over Buffy and Miller, gave the orders in Diamond Vale to carry out the hit, and Miller and Buffy complied. Cassel was highly critical of lead defence attorney Pamela Elder SC. In fact, when Cassel waded into the defence attorney, she had just stepped out of the courtroom.

He started by accusing her of plucking “Chatham/Biche” out of the air in relation to Code 441 which she was informed represented a cellular site. Cassel said Elder was told since February 15 or 16 that 441 was meaningless and that did not represent Chatham or Biche. He said he called two TSTT managers on February 22 a week later to prove this. “She has always known that the suggestion of Biche is wrong. She has never withdrawn her suggestion. She has the gall without any evidence whatsoever to accuse a junior prosecutor of suborning a witness. She should be ashamed of herself.” He continued, “There is no excuse for quite disgraceful behaviour of a senior counsel.”

Cassel did not stop there. He referred to the alibi witness Coleen Marchand. “Again we have to look at Mrs Elder’s conduct. She told you in open court that this witness had been threatened and described how shaken she was. It turned out she was not threatened at all — it was her secretary who had allegedly been threatened. “Furthermore, she plainly was not shaken. She was as cool as a cucumber in the witness box. Her demeanour was not that of someone who had received a threat either directly or indirectly,” Cassel said. He also dealt with several issues and he ended his address promptly at 11 am.

Justice Mark Mohammed, presiding in the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court, then held a briefing in the absence of the jury. That was related to his summation. After more than an hour’s absence from the court, the jury was recalled. Justice Mohammed then said he needed time to put the summation together and decided he will begin the session next Tuesday at 9 am. The summation is likely to end on Thursday.