Inquiry into 1990 attempted coup begins

 Port-of-Spain (CMC):

Nearly 21 years after members of a radical Muslim group sought to overthrow the then Trinidad and Tobago government, a Commission of Inquiry opened here on Monday confident that its report "will be the final and definitive word on those events".

Prominent Barbadian jurist, Sir David Simmons, who is chairing the five-member Commission, said that while academics and journalists have written extensively on the events of July 27, 1990, "we have been assigned the very heavy responsibility to examine the events surrounding the attempted coup in a quasi-judicial manner with a view to closing that chapter in this country's history".

The eight-month-old People's Partnership government agreed to the establishment of the Commission to probe the events surrounding the attempted coup by members of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen group to remove the government of then prime minister ANR Robinson.

The group's leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, who has in the past publicly indicated a willingness to testify before any commission, led more than 100 members in storming the Parliament and the lone television station in a coordinated attack hoping to overthrow the Robinson administration.

At least 24 people, including one legislator, Leo Des Vignes, were killed during the six-day insurrection that ended on August 1. Bakr and his men were tried for treason, but the Court of Appeal upheld the amnesty offered to secure their surrender, and they were released.