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November 24, 2005
Trinidad: Man With Islamist Links Held Over Bombings
We reported earlier on a bomb blast which occurred in Trinidad, which happened in a nightclub at St James, on the outskirts of Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago on Friday, October 14. The blast injured 10 people.
This was the fourth bomb to have hit Trinidad since summer. The first explosion in Port of Spain on July 22 injured 13 people. Initially, members of the radical Islamist group Jamaat al Muslimeen were suspected of involvement. They had initiated a coup against the country in 1990, in which more than twenty people were killed.
After the Saint James attacks, Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of that coup and head of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, was arrested but later released. Abu Bakr is currently in custody on separate charges of sedition and now terrorism.
A suspect is now in custody for the bomb attacks in Port of Spain and St James. 66-year old Lenville Small (pictured) is currently being held in custody, following his arrest on Saturday, 19 November. The night before, officers had raided his Belmont home and found a "hit-list" of various individuals - the Attorney General, a Chief Magistrate and three attorneys, all with prices written next to their names.
Small himself is not known to be a member of Jamaat al Muslimeen, but his elder brother Clive Lancelot Small (aka Olive Enyahooma-El) is a member of Jamaat. He is currently serving a 211 month sentence in the United States after being convicted of gun-trafficking. The names on Lenville Small's list are the names of those who helped to send him, ultimately, to jail.
Today, according to Trinidad Express, Lenville Small has been ordered to be detained for a further 48 hours in custody. High Court judge Mark Mohammed applied section 23 of Trinidad's new Anti-Terrorism Act against Small.
Lenville Small's lawyers were arguing that after five days in custody he had a right to be set free, as he had thitherto not been charged officially. The State argued that if he is released now, he would be likely to "interfere with an ongoing investigation, prepare to commit or facilitate the commission of a terrorist offence". By being held under anti-terror laws, that right of habeas corpus does not apply.
Small is receiving medical treatment for his diabetes and hypertension in his cell at Port of Spain CID HQ. He claims he has been repeatedly questioned about the bomb incidents, and is now becoming "depressed" due to long incarceration.
In a separate development, Trinidad Express reports that 12 people were held for illegal mining activities in quarries in the Valencia and Wallerfield areas yesterday (23 November).
Nine of the 11 quarries were said to be operated by the Jamaat al Muslimeem whose leader Yasin Abu Bakr is currently in jail without bail after being charged with several offences, among them a terrorism charge.The Express reports that on two occasions last week, small planes were seen flying low over the quarry regions and packages were dropped from the aircraft. Curioser and curioser. Is it me, or does it seem that Jamaat al Muslimeen was plotting another coup?The Jamaat-al-Muslimeen has been accused of muscling its way into the industry, at first claiming to have inherited a lease giving them the rights to mine in the midst of a boom in the construction sector which has fueled a demand for aggregate making quarrying a highly lucrative industry.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 24, 2005 7:30 PM
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