TSTT witness of no help

A TSTT consultant was of no assistance to the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court as the conspiracy to murder charge against Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr continued yesterday. The witness had been asked last Friday to verify whether she had compiled records in the possession of the defence. The witness was given until yesterday to check the records of TSTT to determine if she or any other person compiled the record for a certain period. (The name of the witness cannot be published after a request by defence attorney Pamela Elder SC).

When the witness turned up yesterday, she told Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls that it was possible that she could have compiled the record for the period June 3 and 7, 2003. Although questioned at length by Elder’s junior Owen Hinds Jr, the witness could not give a definitive answer that she was the one who prepared the record. As a result, the record on which Hinds was depending to be part of his defence was not tendered into evidence or used in any way. Hinds then indicated that the defence had one more witness to call and asked that the matter be put to Friday when hopefully, the case will come to an end.

Mc Nicolls then adjourned the hearing to Friday. Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Carla Brown-Antoine is prosecuting. Bakr, 63, is charged with conspiring with others to murder expelled Jamaat members Salim Rasheed and Zaki Aubidah on June 4, 2003 at Citrine Drive, Diamond Vale, Diego Martin. In April, after the Chief Magistrate ruled that a prima facie case had been made out against Bakr, defence attorney Pamela Elder SC sought the court’s assistance in having someone from TSTT be called as a witness to verify certain records.