PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):

IN A bid to counter claims of financing terrorism, officials of the Jamaat al Muslimeen say the radical Muslim group is flat broke.

The group, which tried to over-throw the Trinidad and Tobago government in 1990, says it has been feeding the poor, spreading the word of Islam and running its schools on limited funds. Officials told reporters last week that the Jamaat had no money and that its teachers were struggling to get by on a TT$3,000 monthly salary, sometimes going without pay during the vacation months of July and August.

The radical group called the press briefing after officials in the United States (U.S.) linked it to an alleged plot to blow up fuel lines and tanks at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

Help in funding the plot

U.S. detective, Robert Addonizio of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, in a sworn deposition relating to the alleged plot, said the four Caribbean-born Muslims arrested in connection with the plot had planned to meet with leader Yasin Abu Bakr. Addonizio suggested that their purpose was to ask the group for help in funding the plot.

But members of the Jamaat said they had no money, suggesting they were not part of financing any terrorist plot. Officials said the group spends TT$8,000 a month to feed the poor and homelessin Port-of-Spain.

The Jamaat, which has about 6,800 members islandwide, was also hit by more bad news last week when the Court of Appeal made a ruling, blocking Abu Bakr from taking his case involving Prime Minister Patrick Manning to the Privy Council.

Abu Bakr had filed an application for leave to take to the Privy Council, his case compelling Manning to respond to an affidavit which claimed that the government promised to forgive a TT$32 million debt owed to it by the group, in return for muscle power during the 2002 general election.