PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – A sedition trial for the leader of an Islamic group that once staged a deadly coup attempt in Trinidad has ended with a hung jury.
A judge ordered a retrial Thursday for Yasin Abu Bakr after jury members reported they could not come to a decision after six hours of deliberation. The trial had lasted four months.
Abu Bakr has been released on bail pending a new trial.
He is accused of making threats during a 2005 sermon against affluent Muslims who he believed were not paying an Islamic tithe. His lawyer says he was not making seditious statements but simply speaking freely.
Abu Bakr's Jamaat al Muslimeen group stormed Trinidad's legislature in July 1990 in the only Islamic revolt in the Western Hemisphere. Twenty-four people were killed.