PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - Trinidad has filed a lawsuit seeking to seize the property of members of an Islamic group in a bid to claim some US$5 million (euro4 million) in damages from a failed 1990 coup.

Trinidadian officials on Monday said they have found 10 properties valued at about US$6.5 million (euro5.4 million) belonging to members of religious group Jamaat al Muslimeen.

Among the members named in court documents were the group's leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, who was arrested November 7 on terrorism and sedition charges after giving a sermon that called for war against rich Muslims who refuse to pay zakaat, an Islamic tithe for the poor.

In 1990, Abu Bakr's group stormed Parliament and took the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage in a rebellion that left 24 dead. The rebels surrendered after being promised amnesty. The government withdrew the amnesty and prosecuted them, but the charges were dismissed on appeal.

Also named in court documents Monday was Lancelot Small, who was extradited to the United States in 2004 after a US federal grand jury indicted him on charges of attempting to smuggle 60 AK-47 assault rifles, 10 submachine guns and 10 machine gun silencers from Florida to Trinidad. He was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

In 1996, Trinidad's High Court ordered Jamaat al Muslimeen to pay the government for damages, later assessed in the sum of US$2.5 million (euro2 million) plus an annual interest rate of three per cent since the 1990 coup.

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