Caribbean leaders are wondering just how influential a radical Muslim group in Trinidad has become.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR/AP FILE PHOTO

Yasin Abu Bakr's lawyers claim their client cannot get a fair trial in Trinidad because of all the publicity regarding the alleged JFK plot.

• 3 JFK bomb-plot suspects denied bail

Yasin Abu Bakr's trial began Monday here with his attorneys complaining their client couldn't get a fair trial because of all the publicity regarding the alleged JFK plot, in which one Trinidadian and three Guyanese Muslims stand accused.

In response, the presiding judge issued a warning to the media, politicians and anyone else in Trinidad to avoid making any links between the airport plot and Abu Bakr's group, Jamaat Al Muslimeen, saying they would held in contempt of court. The trial continues today.

Abu Bakr's group first captured international attention when it staged a bloody coup attempt here 17 years ago. He and some of his followers have since been accused of ordering murders in Trinidad, convicted in Fort Lauderdale of plotting to smuggle automatic weapons, and suspected in kidnappings and strong-arm crimes here.

The group's No. 2 leader, Kala Akii-Bua, denied any role in the JFK plot in a news conference last week and complained that the media and local politicians are persecuting Jamaat, which now projects itself as a moderate group that focuses on education and helping the poor.

`MANY CORNERS'

''What surprises me is that they have not realized that our organization has turned not one corner, but many corners over the past year,'' he said, flanked by leaders from the group's other mosques on the island. ``We are no strangers to conflict, but we have moved on.''

But U.S., Trinidad and Guyana officials say Jamaat still bears watching because of its apparent political power in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

Avraham Rabby, chief of the political section for the U.S. embassy in Trinidad, told The Miami Herald that authorities are ``watchful.''

''Though they're not in the political system, they do cause problems,'' said Rabby, adding that several criminal cases against Jamaat members have collapsed because witnesses recanted their statements or refused to appear in court -- apparently out of fear of the group.

Gary Griffith, a captain with Trinidad's defense force during Jamaat's 1990 coup attempt and now a national security advisor to the opposition Congress of the People political party, said the group has such political power that it has a license for a quarry.

''Obviously there was some sort of arrangement,'' he Griffith said. ``They bombed the whole of police headquarters, took over parliament [in 1990] and [now] you give them certificates to buy explosives for mining?''

Muslims and non-Muslims alike say Jamaat's past activities have given a bad image to the 6 percent to 10 percent of Trinidad and Tobago's 100,000 or so Muslims, some of Indian descent and some Afro-Trinidadians who converted to Islam.

''There is a perception that every African Muslim [in Trinidad] is associated with the Jamaat -- which is not true,'' said Mohammed Abdul Latif, an officer with the Iman-e-Zamana Mission, the country's main Shiite Muslim group.

But Abu Bakr's followers, now estimated at about 800, have a history of violence.

Founded more than 20 years ago by Abu Bakr, a former policeman who was born Lennox Phillip and converted to Islam in the 1970s, Jamaat staged the coup attempt in 1990 that left 24 dead.

The attackers surrendered and received presidential amnesty. But Abu Bakr was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in 2003 by ordering Jamaat members Brent Miller and David Millard to kill two people expelled from the group.

Millard fled to nearby Guyana, from where he was extradited last year.

In 2005, Jamaat member Clive Lancelot Small was sentenced to 151 months in prison for trying to ship 70 automatic weapons from Fort Lauderdale to Trinidad.

In the JFK plot, U.S. prosecution documents allege that some of four men accused visited Jamaat's main compound in Trinidad to seek its support for the bombing plot.

Relatives of one suspect, Guyanese Abdul Kadir, have confirmed he lived in the Jamaat compound while studying engineering in Trinidad. Jamaat members say two others -- Trinidad's Kareem Ibrahiim and Guyana's Abdel Nur -- sometimes prayed at their mosque.

Kareem Ibrahiim's daughter, Huda, told The Miami Herald her father is innocent. He sometimes prayed at the Jamaat mosque but as a Shiite Muslim he didn't agree ''ideologically'' with the Sunni Muslim Jamaat.

Trinidad and Tobago's Attorney General John Jeremie has made it a top priority to finally win a conviction against Abu Bakr. Still, Jamaat clearly retains a measure of political power.

Abu Bakr has claimed he made ''secret deal'' with current Prime Minister Patrick Manning before the 2002 election, which involved Jamaat helping Manning's People's National Movement (PNM) party win in return for forgiving a $32 million Jamaat debt for damage to government buildings during the coup attempt.

`SLEEPING GIANT'

Griffith calls Jamaat the ''sleeping giant'' that arises during election years -- like this one -- in order to help mobilize the crucial black Muslim swing vote.

The country's population is divided almost evenly between those of African and Indian descent, who have historically also politically voted for parties within their racial groups: with black Trinidadians mostly belonging to Manning's PNM, and Indians leaning toward the opposition United National Congress (UNC).

''What usually happens is political parties will use them to get into government, and then there is a price to pay,'' said Griffith, a member of a new third party, the Congress of the People.

Miami Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles contributed from Guyana.

http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/136626.html