Shal­iza Has­sanali

One of the 17 men de­tained by po­lice for his in­volve­ment in an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three mem­bers of her Cab­i­net is now run­ning scared. Zaid Ab­dul Hameed, 28, was de­tained and ques­tioned about whether he had trav­elled to Afghanistan, worked with Amer­i­ca's most want­ed man, de­ceased Osama Bin Laden, and had ob­tained Is­lam­ic mil­i­tary train­ing. He is now claim­ing that ques­tions are be­ing asked about him by Cau­casian men. Hameed feels the men-who have been snoop­ing around his Long­denville, home-are work­ing with the Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency to un­earth more in­for­ma­tion to pin the as­sas­si­na­tion plot on him.

The men were first seen at the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion where Hameed was de­tained for nine days. They were al­so spot­ted on Thurs­day by neigh­bours on the street where he lives. Mem­bers of sev­er­al mosques Hameed at­tends were al­so ques­tioned. Pri­or to his ar­rest, Hameed said two po­lice of­fi­cers pur­port­ing to be Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment em­ploy­ees vis­it­ed his home telling his wife that they had wel­fare mon­ey for him. With­out think­ing or ask­ing for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion badges, Hameed said his wife sup­plied the po­lice with an­swers. Just be­fore mid­night that same day, Hameed said a con­tin­gent of armed po­lice of­fi­cers swooped down at his home and ar­rest­ed him.

His house was ran­sacked and searched for sev­er­al hours. With a sense of un­easi­ness, Hameed, a de­vout Mus­lim, on Fri­day, said he feared for his life. "Is move we go­ing to move out. I done put my truck for sale in the pa­pers. The shoot­ers and them com­ing. I know I am a marked man. Every­thing turn­ing crazy." The po­lice, Hameed said, ac­cused him of trans­port­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion with his truck for the as­sas­si­na­tion plot. Hameed said what was dis­turb­ing was that the po­lice had no ev­i­dence. "No taped con­ver­sa­tions, doc­u­ments, pho­tographs, guns or am­mu­ni­tion. All they find is a man tele­phone num­ber on my phone. I am a man of busi­ness. Every­body watch­ing me now."

Hameed ad­mit­ted that his truck was caught in il­le­gal min­ing in which the po­lice was in­volved but he was nev­er charged. Two days be­fore Hameed's re­lease, his wife of four years and moth­er of his three sons was giv­en an ul­ti­ma­tum by her fam­i­ly, ei­ther leave him or be­come an out­cast. "I am now re­ject­ed by my fam­i­ly be­cause I have de­cid­ed to stay with him for the sake of our boys and come up with a plan. This whole thing has been like a night­mare. We are so con­fused by the turn of events," said Hameed's wife, a sec­ondary school teacher who re­fused to give her name. Hameed de­nied be­ing a rad­i­cal Mus­lim or a friend of the de­tainees.

'Most of the de­tainees have gone in­to hid­ing'

Dis­clos­ing that most of the de­tainees have dis­ap­peared or gone in­to hid­ing for fear of be­ing tar­get­ed or killed, Hameed said: "I am the on­ly one stick­ing." Speak­ing for the first time since his re­lease from the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa last Mon­day, Hameed said his en­tire life and that of his fam­i­ly was falling apart. He blamed the Prime Min­is­ter and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship for this. "The Prime Min­is­ter should come clear on the mat­ter. They have no ev­i­dence on me. I nev­er make a jail. I have no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions. So what was this about?" Hameed de­scribed the plot as a hoax.

"This is a make up thing. The sit­u­a­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter has noth­ing to do with me. Watch how many peo­ple are af­fect­ed by this. For what rea­son?" Vow­ing not to give up Is­lam, Hameed said per­se­cu­tion comes to those who trav­el the right way. Hameed was ar­rest­ed af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy had signed de­ten­tion or­ders, clear­ing the way for the de­tainees to be held un­der the SoE, which end­ed last Mon­day. On Thurs­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley asked Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to use his of­fice to es­tab­lish an eval­u­a­tion re­port which chal­lenged the find­ings of the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Re­port, which warned of an as­sas­si­na­tion plot against Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In­sist­ing that he nev­er vot­ed for or sup­port­ed the PP Gov­ern­ment, Hameed ad­mit­ted to sell­ing ma­chin­ery to promi­nent busi­ness own­ers, who have brand­ed him a Mus­lim ex­trem­ist. Hameed said if any­thing should hap­pen to him, the Gov­ern­ment would have to an­swer to his wife, chil­dren and rel­a­tives. Days be­fore his re­lease, Hameed was dis­missed from his trans­port­ing job with a fur­ni­ture store. Hameed said Mus­lims who are re­peat­ed­ly locked up are im­pli­cat­ed lat­er on. "I have no doubt that if I re­main alive I will al­ways be hunt­ed and per­se­cut­ed."