Today marks 33 years since the Jamaat al Muslimeen tried to overthrow the Government of Trinidad and Tobago when they stormed the Parliament and held the Prime Minister and other members of parliament hostage:
• On Friday, 27th July 1990, over the course of six days, the Jamaat al Muslimeen, led by Yasin Abu Bakr, held hostages including the then Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson and other Parliamentarians at the Red House and the headquarters of the state-owned national television broadcaster, Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT).
• Abu Bakr later appeared on television and announced that the government had been taken into custody and he was negotiating with the army.
• On August 1st, the insurgents surrendered. They were charged with treason but were ordered released after the court validated an amnesty granted to them by then-president Noor Mohamed Hassanali.
24 people were killed during six (6) days of terror unleashed by members of the Jamaat during the 1990 attempted coup, among them three (3) police officers.
• Police officers, Solomon Mc Leod, Roger George, Malcolm Basanta and ex-policeman Arthur Giuseppi, were killed by insurgents who bombed the police headquarters at the corner of St. Vincent and Sackville Street, Port of Spain.
• During the attack, the police headquarters was firebombed around 5:50 p.m. on July 27. Mc Leod, who was 23 years old at the time and new to the TTPS, was the first to be shot and killed at the north entrance where he was posted.
• Mc Leod had traded bullets with the terrorist who shot him and drove over his body before detonating a bomb inside the police headquarters. The TTPS has named a theatre in the police administrative building after Mc Leod.
On that fateful day 33 years ago, 114 insurgents stormed the Red House while it was in session and took many persons hostage, including the duly-elected Prime Minister Arthur Napoleon Raymond (ANR) Robinson, members of parliament, staff of the parliament and persons seated in the public and media galleries.
• Staff of the television station, TT, and Radio Trinidad were also held hostage. Eight persons died as a direct result of the storming of the red house.”
• Many businesses were looted and buildings destroyed in the aftermath.
The names of the other victims are:
• Leo Des Vignes – a member of parliament for Diego Martin Central
• Lorraine Caballero – clerical officer
• Mervyn Teague – government broadcasting unit employee
• George Francis – chauffeur
According to the 2014 report of a commission of enquiry into the attempted coup, at least 24 other people were killed during the six-day attack and around 231 were injured.
Who was Yasin Abu Bakr?
• Days after celebrating his 80th birthday, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, formerly Lennox Phillip, passed away on October 21st 2021. He was born on October 19th 1941.
• Bakr, a former policeman, was the leader of the Jamaat-Al-Muslimeen, which tried to overthrow the NAR government on July 27, 1990.
• Bakr, a diabetic, collapsed at his home at Long Circular Road, St. James and was taken to the St. James health facility, where he was declared dead.
• In subsequent years, Bakr was before the courts on several charges, none of which he was convicted for.
• He was charged with sedition following threatening remarks during an Eid sermon in 2005. In 2012, the matter ended in a hung jury. He has been facing retrial since 2015.
• In 2003, Bakr was charged with conspiracy to murder former Jamaat members Zaki Aubaida and Salim Rasheed. The case against him was subsequently dropped by the DPP.
• In September 2010, after an inquest at the Port-of-Spain magistrates’ court, Nalini Singh ruled that Bakr should be charged with the 1998 murder of Maraval resident Israel Sammy. That matter was also discontinued by the DPP.
