A gangland-style Muslim group called Jamaat-al Muslimeen is under fire in Trinidad and Tobago for a wave of kidnappings, and the group's leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr is facing charges for conspiracy to murder.
Here's some background, via The Los Angeles Times.
...an ugly ill threatens the perpetual party atmosphere: kidnapping, a crime so epidemic that Trinidad now ranks second in the world behind Colombia for its spiraling rate of abductions. Victims and police point to a homegrown radical Muslim gang that sought to topple the government in 1990 and has since built a lucrative criminal empire. U.S. intelligence operatives are thought to be watching the militants of Jamaat al Muslimeen for signs that they are linked to global terrorist networks such as al-Qaida.Abductions targeting the prosperous and politically influential have evoked comparison to the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whose kidnappings in the Philippines and Malaysia have chilled business at island resorts in those Pacific countries. They have also instilled fear in this country, home of the Caribbean's most dynamic economy, that visitors and foreign investors could begin looking elsewhere.
The relatively small and obscure Jamaat al Muslimeen sparked the kidnapping wave that flared up about two years ago, but authorities see an even more troubling copycat phenomenon. Amateur crooks and street kids are getting into the act, inspired by the ransoms paid by relatives who may fear the police as much as the abductors.
Abu Bakr's trial is front page news today in Port of Spain. More here:
The jury in the conspiracy to murder trial against Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr heard yesterday about the Jamaat's control of the controversial Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) where people got paid for doing nothing.Brent "Small Brent" Danglade, one of the State's key witnesses against Abu Bakr, made the admission in court as he spent his second day in the witness stand.
Danglade, 27, currently facing charges of murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment, said when he came out of prison in 2001, "Muslims controlled everything. If you was not a Muslim, nothing for you."
He said he joined the Jamaat after taking the oath (Shahada) to become a Muslim, and soon after got a position as an area foreman in the URP, collecting $800 a fortnight for doing nothing.
"You did not have to do any work and you getting pay. I take the Shahada and became a Muslim. That is how I get a URP job," Danglade told Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Henderson near the end of yesterday's hearing.
...he said if he did a kidnapping and the ransom was $100,000 and the Imam hear about it, or somebody hear about it, they would want a cut.
....Danglade, who confessed to being involved in several kidnappings, drug dealings and murders while testifying on Monday, denied that he was a "ghost foreman". "Ghost don't get pay, I get pay," he said when probed by Elder.
....He said he was sure about what Abu Bakr said during the June 4, 2003, meeting, where the accused gave instructions to kill Salim and Zaki...
What would Mohammed say?
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 2, 2005 01:55 PM
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