PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
BRITISH POLICE officers were due in Trinidad yesterday to interrogate a man arrested by Trinidad and Tobago police last week as he was about to board a plane for London.
Umar Mohammed, 26, was rearrested outside the Port-of-Spain Magistrates' Court on Monday, minutes after he was released on TT$25,000 (US$4,166) on a charge of being in possession of two offensive weapons, namely two knives.
His rearrest followed a failed bid by Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Henderson to have his bail revoked. Henderson had told Magistrate Halcian Yorke-Young that his application was based on the fact that the accused was granted bail before police authorities in Trinidad and abroad could establish whether he had any pending charges of criminal convictions.
He said that the investigation regarding Mohammed's antecedents "goes beyond our local shores" and asked the court to have the accused held in custody until Tuesday.
But defence attorney Sophia Chote argued that her client had not been charged with any serious offence nor was he charged under any anti-terrorist legislation.
"To take him back into custody will cause him to suffer more hardship," she said, noting that Mohammed had been fingerprinted three times by the local authorities since his arrest on October 6 and that provided sufficient time to check on his background in Trinidad and Britain.
ITEMS SEIZED
Media reports yesterday said that the British anti-terrorist police want to question Mohammed whom they believe is linked to the deadly London bombings in July.
Mohammed was arrested on October 6 at Crown Point Airport in Tobago and later police searched the homes where he stayed in Trinidad seizing a number of items, including a computer and telephone.
Mohammed, who was born in India, got married to a Trinidadian woman three weeks ago. Relatives described him as a 'religious person'.
The arrest of the 26-year-old Muslim man in Tobago has now led investigators to London, where Scotland Yard raided three residences searching for terrorist material.
Scotland Yard Monday confirmed that they carried out the raids in Harrows, a section of north-west London.
In a brief statement, the London Metropolitan Police reported: "We are liaising with authorities in Trinidad and Tobago regarding their investigation. At their request, we have conducted searches of three residential addresses in north-west London. No arrests have been made in the UK."
Taken from The Daily Gleaner, Wednesday October 12, 2005
(This story included reporting from the Trinidad Guardian)
