Trinidad panel takes fresh look at 1990 uprising

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — The Muslim cleric who led a small army that stormed Trinidad & Tobago’s parliament in a blaze of gunfire is a free man. Never convicted of any charges, he cheerfully presides over a mosque and school complex in the country’s bustling capital and shares time among his four wives, the maximum Islam allows.

Yasin Abu Bakr and his followers were jailed for two years after the 1990 attempt to overthrow the government of one of the Caribbean’s most prosperous countries.

But they were freed under an amnesty and attempts to prosecute them failed even though 24 people were killed. More than 50 people were taken hostage, including the prime minister, who was bound and shot in the leg.

After years of lingering questions about the attempted coup by Bakr and 113 armed rebels, a commission appointed by the government in 2010 has been taking a fresh look into the only Islamic revolt in the Western Hemisphere.

The commission has held more than a dozen sessions over three years in an effort to understand better how and why the violent upheaval occurred. But the panel has no subpoena power and the findings are unlikely to lead to any arrests. And Bakr isn’t hurrying to provide any answers. The towering 72-year-old, who dresses in a white robe and skullcap, recently gave The Associated Press a rare interview. Bakr said he hasn’t decided if he’ll testify before the five-member commission, which is expected to finish collecting testimony by year’s end.

“I am the architect; I am the leader of the coup,” Bakr told the AP at the Jamaat al Muslimeen group’s compound, where youngsters carried their books from a two-story school and a group of men chatted outside a spacious domed mosque. “I know everything that happened. If I don’t testify to all the things that happened everybody is just guessing.”

Against this backdrop, Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Trinidad on Tuesday for trade and security talks with Prime Minister Kamala Kamla PersadBissessar and other Caribbean politicians.

The commission’s work is not on the agenda, even though the failed rebellion by the Islamic group still looms large for the region in a post 9-11 world.