Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr was emphatic as he repeatedly stated under cross-examination on March 4, 2005 that Prime Minister Patrick Manning owed him nothing.

Even when British Queen Counsel Sir Timothy Cassel pressed him on whether Manning owed him anything in exchange for his electoral support, Bakr reiterated: ’The Prime Minister owes me nothing, sir’.

This sworn testimony was given during a conspiracy to murder trial in which Bakr was charged for conspiring to murder Salim ’Small Salim’ Rasheed and Zaki Aubaidah, his son-in-law.

Cassel was appearing for the State and he questioned Bakr about his relationship with the Prime Minister. On three occasions Cassel asked Bakr whether Manning owed him for his support of the PNM election campaign, and he categorically denied under oath that there was any quid pro quo between himself and Manning.

But this testimony it is in stark contrast to Bakr’s claims one year later when in his sworn affidavit in June 8, 2006 made to protect his property from government seizure during the summons for sale (of Bakr’s properties) case, he alleged that there was a quid pro quo, in which in exchange for his support, Manning promised not to pursue the order of seizure of Jamaat lands.

Bakr testimony during the conspiracy trial forms part of the documentation being considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions. And it was forwarded to the Acting Commissioner of Police yesterday by Attorney General John Jeremie.

One Senior Counsel has pointed out that two statements which contradict each other, were both made under oath. ’Both can’t be true and therefore there are legal implications in respect of the untrue statement,’ the legal counsel stated, adding there appears to have been the commission of perjury.

Abu Bakr’s 2006 allegations have now been referred to the DPP and the acting Commissioner of Police ’for consideration’ by Justice Rajendra Narine.

Narine’s decision has attracted international attention as reflected in a new item appearing on the private website of Homeland Security News.

Under the ’national terror alert response centre’ an article headlined: ’Trinidad Prime Minister alleged to have ties to NYC terror case’ with a smiling photo of Prime Minister appears. The articles states that Narine ordered the investigation in allegations ’that the island’s Prime Minister promised state resources to a radical Islamic group in exchange for supporting his 2002 election campaign’.

It added that Narine cited ’the extremely serious nature of the allegations’. The article noted that the group is the same one that two years ago denied involvement with four men in a plot to blow up John F Kennedy International Airport and noted that the indictment said the men hoped to cause ’greater destruction than in the September 11 attacks’.

The article which no reference to the Attorney General’s statement to Parliament saying that both the Court of Appeal and Privy Council had rejected the affidavit as been scandalous, irrelevant and had ordered it be struck off the record.

The report has called a measure of alarm among Trinidad and Tobago nationals in the United States. At our diplomatic posts in the US-in Washington, New York and Miami-representatives had to allay the concerns of nationals, while appropriate approaches are being made by diplomatic representatives with a view to setting the record straight.