Al Muslimeen was the man - journalist

PORT-OF-SPAIN (CMC):

Veteran journalist Jones P. Madeira on Wednesday said that the leader of the radical Jamaat Al Muslimeen group, Yasin Abu Bakr, was in total control of the persons who attempted to overthrow the Trinidad and Tobago government in 1990.

But Madeira, who was among a number of journalists and media workers held captive at the state-owned television station by the Muslim group when it staged the July 27, 1990 failed coup, said Bakr also wanted the post of national security in the new government that would have replaced the then ANR Robinson administration.

Madeira, the then director of news at the Trinidad and Tobago Television, said that even though there appeared to be some "nervousness" among the young members of the group, "it was quite clear who was in charge. Everything went through him (Bakr)".

Madeira told the commission of enquiry into the July 1990 coup that some of those involved in the coup had boasted that they had been trained in the Middle East and had travelled there through Venezuela.