Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer de­tainee Is­lam­ic schol­ar Ash­mead Choate spent his first day home af­ter his re­lease rest­ing and catch­ing up with his fam­i­ly af­ter spend­ing al­most two weeks in cus­tody. Choate was one of 16 men de­tained un­der the Emer­gency Pow­er Reg­u­la­tions 2011. At his his home yes­ter­day at Choate's Crag­nish Road, Princes Town, his son, Ash­mead Jr, said his fa­ther was not at home. He, how­ev­er, agreed to a brief in­ter­view. His fa­ther, he said, spent the day rest­ing and was not see­ing vis­i­tors. Ash­mead added: "He is tired. He was in jail for two weeks with­out a charge and he is ob­vi­ous­ly tired. He is try­ing to re­gain a sem­blance of self.

"They paint­ed some­thing ug­ly about him which is not who he re­al­ly is. He nev­er got a speed­ing tick­et in his life, nor has he com­mit­ted any crim­i­nal of­fences." He said when his fa­ther came home on Mon­day, "we were over­whelmed and over­joyed." Ash­mead said even af­ter his fa­ther's ex­pe­ri­ence, "I do not fear an in­jus­tice from Gov­ern­ment in this mat­ter. "At the end of the day we put our trust in God as the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter would of­ten say. "I put my trust in Al­lah and I fear no in­jus­tices. I be­lieve that Al­lah will pro­tect us." He said his fa­ther need­ed a cou­ple of days to re­lax. Ash­mead said since his fa­ther's re­lease the fam­i­ly had been swamped with vis­i­tors com­ing to show their sup­port.