While the Jamaat al Muslimeen has collected over $2 million in damages for the State destruction of buildings at its Mucurapo Road complex, the Government is yet to go after the Abu Bakr-led group of radical Islamacists for the $25 million owed to the State for the destruction of Police Headquarters in Port of Spain, which was firebombed during the bloody 1990 uprising.
Special Report By Camini MarajhTwo Governments, the UNC and the PNM, have danced around the issue, mouthing the appropriate sound bites about exploring all possible options to claim money owed to the State. Both administrations have made handsome pay-outs to the Bakr-headed Muslim organisation for property damage to No 1 Mucurapo Road, but to date, neither government has sought to enforce the court-ordered judgment against the Muslimeen.
Last week, Attorney General John Jeremie responded to questions of enforcement from this newspaper with a terse two-paragraph statement, which read: "This matter involves multiple defendants in varied circumstances, some of who are alive, some of who are now dead. It is a complicated matter and I have been given every assurance that the relevant steps are being taken to protect the State's interest."
Bakr meanwhile, has gone on public record, making clear his intention not to pay a cent in damages owed to the State. The coup-attempt leader, who has expressed no remorse about 1990, has also said that no official of any government had ever broached the subject of payment with him. And while the State continues to provide ready quips to the media about exploring its options against the Muslimeen, Bakr is quietly building his empire.
Sunday Express investigations show Bakr sitting on a virtual gold mine with property listings in his name in upscale residential areas, including a two-storey residence in Queen's Park East, conservatively estimated at $6 million, a palatial residence at the back of the pricey Westwinds development in Diego Martin, over 5.2 hectares of land in Indian Trail, Couva, and more property in Diego Martin and in Debe, Long Circular.
A search through the property registry shows that Bakr acquired the Queen's Park East property in November 1989 for just under half a million dollars. A former Muslimeen member and coup-maker, Ahmad Islam Ali, is named as a joint owner, but sources close to No 1 Mucurapo Road report that Ali was kicked out of the house following a dispute with his leader. The house is occupied by Atiya, one of Bakr's four wives.
His first wife, Annisa, an economist with the Ministry of Finance, occupies the sprawling Diego Martin property which lists one of his 15 children, Gary Phillip, as a joint owner. Bakr, who secured a 25-year lease from the NAR Government for a two-acre tract of agricultural land in Tamana three years before he used smuggled guns to launch a violent assault on that administration, started his property stockpiling two years after his release from prison on treason and murder charges.
Bakr and his band of insurgents were freed in 1992 by Justice Clebert Brooks, who held that the conditional pardon granted by then acting President Emmanuel Carter was valid and was not procured by duress, unlawful action or improper pressure since there was no gun to his head.
Brooks found the State's argument of duress unsustainable and held that Carter exercised "his own free choice" when he signed the amnesty document on the evening of July 28, 1990. And although his ruling was later overturned by the Privy Council, the rebels could not be rearrested again for crimes committed during the coup attempt because of an old legal provision known as a writ of habeas corpus.
Since his release from prison, Bakr has taken a fourth wife, Indrani Maria Maharaj, an attorney-at-law, has paid off a mortgage on the five-acre La Puerta estate in Diego Martin where Annisa stays, and purchased another six acres in Diego Martin, a lot in Dibe, more property in Indian Trail, Couva, and a parcel of land in Marabella.
Interestingly, all of his post-1990 acquisitions were bought free and clear, and all paid in cash. On the face of it, Bakr secured a lot of property, some quite expensive, for relatively low sums of money. And on at least one occasion, the value on the deed was grossly underestimated.
According to documents reviewed by the Sunday Express, Bakr, in August 2003, purchased six acres of land in Diego Martin from a retired painter for $100,000 but he paid the Board of Inland Revenue $4,000 to cover stamp duty charges on the property assessed by an independent valuator at $200,000, double what he paid for the property.
Insiders also report him owning property in Fort George, Valsayn, and a quarry operation in Valencia. There are property listings in the names of three of his wives. Annisa, whose address in one deed is listed at Palm Drive, Champ Fleurs, in 1994 purchased a lot of land in Mayaro from attorney Christine Anderson-Sealey, who was recently freed on a drug money laundering charge.
Fatima Jeanne Juman, whose address is listed on another deed at 19 Valsayn Gardens, in 1991 purchased two parcels of land comprising over 62 hectares in San Rafael and Caroni South Bank Road for a housing development for $6,848 from the Sou-Sou Land Cooperative Society. Indrani Maria Maharaj owns property in Charuma, Biche, Marabella and on Ruth Avenue in San Fernando.
Bakr, who has no known legal means of income has admitted to receiving millions of dollars from Libya through his membership in the World Islamic Call Society. Two of his sons were educated in Tripoli and a lot of his membership, including slain gangland boss Mark Guerra, have received military training in Libya.
Former associates of the Muslimeen leader, including security chief Hassan Anyabwile, who is currently fighting a deportation order in the UK, have made public accusations against Bakr, suggesting that he not only tolerates criminal activity at his Mucurapo mosque but that he benefits from it. Former associates and intelligence sources report that Bakr collects protection money in the form of donations to the mosque.
Insiders attribute the fracturing of his organisation and the formation of splinter groups to disputes surrounding money from, among other things, the proceeds from criminal jobs, including extortion, kidnapping, robberies and the drug trade.
The State payout of $2.1 million also created some dissension among his followers who were said to be vexed by his decision not to share the spoils of the court award. Bakr had said that the funds would go to his mosque, schools and medical centre.
Security sources have failed to sniff out Bakr's assets or trace his source of funds notwithstanding a large number of cash transactions related to his name. One government source contends that even if there is a suspicion of a dubious income stream, there was little the State could do since individuals, including coup-attempt leaders, have a constitutional right to enjoyment of property.
The source said in the absence of illicit enrichment legislation and new charges being drawn up under the Proceeds of Crime Act against Bakr and his empire, there was no law to compel Bakr to disclose his personal assets or any legal authority for the State to go sniffing through his personal holdings.
Bakr, who refused to return several phone messages left at his Mucurapo mosque and at several of his homes, travels frequently to the Middle East. He was stopped and interrogated at London's Heathrow Airport en route to Tripoli following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. In April, the local courts pushed back the preliminary enquiry into conspiracy to murder charges against him to accommodate his travel plans to Rome.
He is also said to be quite close to Muslimeen member Lance Small, aka Olive Enyahooma-El, who was identified by Keith Glaude as the consignee to a shipment of machine guns and assault rifles. Glaude was arrested in an ATF (US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) sting operation in Fort Launderdale on May 30, 2001. Small, meanwhile, has lost and appealed an extradition order to the US on weapon possession charges.
Bakr, meanwhile, is using some of his funding from various undisclosed charities to host a series of conferences. His latest conference, entitled "The way forward in a multicultural and multireligious society", started yesterday at the Cascadia Hotel in St Ann's, and continues today with contributions from Canon Knolly Clarke, among others. Clarke was a principal figure in the early negotiations for an amnesty during the 1990 insurrection.
