TT: Keep quiet already!

Jamaat al Muslimeen members headed to court

CHIEF Magistrate Sherman McNicolls gagged the media yesterday from publishing the names of TSTT employees who were aiding the court in getting a certain witness to testify in the Yasin Abu Bakr conspiracy-to-murder preliminary enquiry.

An acting manager, a consultant and another TSTT employee were before McNicolls in the Port of Spain Eighth Magistrate's Court.

When the matter was called, Abu Bakr's lead attorney, Pamela Elder SC, told the court the defence found itself in an unavoidable situation of seeking the court's assistance in getting certain witnesses.
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Elder then asked that the names of the TSTT personnel not be published since "it may impact on the department".

Deputy DPP Carla Browne-Antoine, who is prosecuting, said she had no objections "at this stage" because the persons were not and may never be witnesses before the court and it was a "matter of the protection of processes".

She referred to Section 42 (1) of the Preliminary Inquiry Act to state that "names, addresses, occupations..." of witnesses could be published.

McNicolls acceded to the defence's request and ordered the five members of the media present not to publish the names.

Later in the proceedings, Elder attempted to get McNicolls to order that photographs of the TSTT employees, if taken, also not be published.

McNicolls, however, did not see the necessity for this and raised the point that the photographers operated in the public streets. At the end of the ruling, the TSTT employees were ushered out of the court through the back.

The matter was adjourned to June 8 because a TSTT employee who may or may not have compiled certain records would need time.

Bakr, 62, leader of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, is before the court charged with conspiring with Mustapha "Buffy" Mohammed, also known as David Millard, and four other persons at Citrine Avenue, Diamond Vale, Diego Martin, to murder Salim "Small Salim" Rasheed and Zaki Aubaidah.

Rasheed was a victim of a shooting on June 4, outside the MovieTowne Cineplex at Invader's Bay, off Wrightson Road, Port of Spain. Another Jamaat member, Addil Ghany, was injured while his common-law wife, Jillia Bowen, was killed in the shooting.