Yasin abu bakr biography of michael

Flashback: The following interview was first published on 27 July 2015…

Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr says that the country still does not know the real story of July 1990 but he is not yet ready to share it.

What he does share is that it is the Jamaat’s attempts to clean up the drugs scene in the country that saw them step on the corns of influential people in the society and led the NAR Government to launch an offensive to deprive them of their land in Mucurapo.

Bakr sat down for a one-on-one with Wired868 reporter, Otancia Noel.

WIRED868 REPORTER (WR): This July marks 25 years since that fateful day in 1990 when your troops stormed into the Red House and destroyed the parliament’s virginity forever. Looking back at that unforgettable six-day period 25 years later, what is your first thought?

YASIN ABU BAKR (YAB): Well, not much has changed by way of governance; that’s the first, first thought that comes into my mind. And I remember on that fateful day saying that, if this society did not stop and make a right-about turn, they were going to descend into the abyss, the place of no return.

Today, 25 years later, that is exactly what is happening…

So 1990. Usually people ask what happened in 1990 and start with 1990 but 1990 has a genesis. Many, many things happened before 1990 that led up to 1990. People don’t just get up one morning and go in a parliament to overthrow a government; that is insane. And if you are insane, you would not be capable of planning and executing such an action. So to claim that we are insane is to claim that the other people are also insane for letting something like that happen right under their nose. And supposedly they were having a hundred eyes on the Jamaat every day.

So there is a genesis to 1990 and the genesis basically is that the government broke the rule of law. The Jamaat were having constant problems with the

On July 27, 2009 Trinidadians marked the nineteenth anniversary of the failed attempt by the Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM – Muslim Association, known colloquially as “the Jamaat)” to overthrow the government in Trinidad and Tobago in a violent coup.  Although JAM made international headlines in June 2007 when one of the suspects in an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was reported to have ties to the group, the enigmatic Caribbean militant group, composed mostly of Afro-Trinidadian converts to Islam, has received scant attention outside of Trinidad in recent years (see Terrorism Monitor, June 21, 2007).  In contrast, nearly two decades after the coup attempt, Trinidadian society still bears the scars of that infamous day; media coverage and public discussion of domestic politics continue to be fraught with tales of intrigue and conspiracy involving JAM and the highest levels of power in the twin island nation.  JAM’s history of political militancy is only matched by the group’s criminal activities—JAM is implicated in gangland-style slayings, narcotics and arms trafficking, money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, and political corruption.

In spite of its record, ranking JAM members have escaped serious prosecution for their most egregious actions.  For many Trinidadians, the state’s failure (or what some believe is its reluctance) to bring closure to the 1990 revolt that left scores dead and injured and caused millions of dollars in damages continues to provoke heated controversy.  The ability of senior JAM members to evade justice for their involvement in the uprising and an array of other militant and criminal acts also continues to astound observers who follow the group. The present status of the government’s ongoing legal battles against JAM and, in particular, the group’s leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, is a case in point.

Legal Wrangling and Controversy

Abu Bakr currently faces a series of charges ranging from sediti