Jamaat al Muslimeen
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Template:Politics of Trinidad and Tobago The Jamaat al Muslimeen is a Muslim organisation within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago with a membership of predominantly Afro-Trinidadians. The appeal of its doctrines to the poor and displaced classes of society have seen its membership and popularity take hold within these communities.
It was the organisation's leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, who led members of the Jamaat in an attempted coup d'état against the elected Government of Trinidad and Tobago in July 1990. Over a six-day period members of the government including then-Prime Minister A.N.R. Robinson were held hostage at gun point while chaos and looting broke out in the streets of the capital Port-of-Spain. The legal upholding of an amnesty agreement obtained during the incarceration of parliament by the group had led to the non-prosecution of its members for this crime. Subsequent to the attempted coup, it aligned itself publicly first with the United National Congress (in the run-up to the 1995 General Elections) and later with the People's National Movement (PNM), the party which forms the current Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is also reputed to have ties with the Libyan and Sudanese governments.
Allegations of the Jamaat's thuggery and intimidation of supporters of the United National Congress, the other major political party of the country and current Opposition, during the last elections were made, but no investigations were launched into the validity of these claims which saw the previous election's 50-50 deadlock broken with the Patrick Manning led People's National Movement gaining a majority 20 seats to the Basdeo Panday led United National Congress's 16.
Before and since those elections, however, present and past members have been connected or prosecuted for serious violent crimes, including drug and gang related killings and a current spree of kidnappings for ranson of members of the local middle class. The organisation's leader is currently being prosecuted with conspiracy to murder several of the group's former members who spoke out publicly against the organisation and its practices and who were suspected of becoming witnesses in legal proceedings against its members.
Currently they are under surveillance by the local National Security Agency as well as the United States Central Intelligence Agency along with two other Muslim factions within the island for suspected relations with terrorist leaders in the Middle East.