SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter six years in a prison in Iraq, Sabi­rah Khal­i­dah Wa­heed’s sen­tence will come to an end on Wednes­day, clear­ing the way for her to be the first Trinida­di­an to be de­port­ed from the con­flict zone.

Wa­heed, 33, is a con­vict­ed ter­ror­ist. She was jailed for her af­fil­i­a­tion with the ter­ror­ist group, ISIS.

As time draws clos­er for Wa­heed’s re­lease, her at­tor­ney Criston J Williams is await­ing word from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on whether he would grant Wa­heed and her two chil­dren, one of whom was born in Iraq, trav­el doc­u­ments to fa­cil­i­tate their safe de­por­ta­tion from the Mid­dle East.

In 2016, Wa­heed, along with her hus­band Umar Rab­by Ku­mar and their daugh­ter Ra’eesah, left Trinidad to join the Is­lam­ic State.

They were part of a group of 19 Trinida­di­an men, women and chil­dren who en­tered Iraq and Syr­ia il­le­gal­ly as ji­hadists.

Wa­heed’s moth­er Aneesa Mo­hammed-Wa­heed and her sis­ters Aidah, 23, and Az­izah, 32, in­clud­ing their hus­bands were part of that con­tin­gent.

While en­ter­ing Iraq il­le­gal­ly, the group was caught by au­thor­i­ties and placed in Iraqi pris­ons.

Wa­heed who was preg­nant at the time was sep­a­rat­ed from her hus­band, a Guyanese na­tion­al, and was put in jail with her four-year-old daugh­ter.

The birth of Wa­heed’s son came short­ly af­ter and he too was in­car­cer­at­ed.

A tran­script from the Court of Cas­sa­tion in the Kur­dis­tan Re­gion ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian showed that Wa­heed was charged un­der Ar­ti­cle 3/7 of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Law No 3 of 2006 and sen­tenced to six years im­pris­on­ment.

Wa­heed’s moth­er and sis­ters were or­dered to serve 20 years in jail.

Iraq’s an­ti-ter­ror­ism law em­pow­ers courts to con­vict peo­ple who are be­lieved to have helped ISIS even if they are not ac­cused of vi­o­lence.

Hav­ing served her time, Wa­heed’s con­fine­ment is sched­uled to be ter­mi­nat­ed on Wednes­day.

Lawyer push­es for de­por­ta­tion

In a four-page let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 3, 2023, e-mailed to Hinds and copied to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, Williams re­quest­ed the pro­vi­sion of trav­el doc­u­ments for Wa­heed and her two chil­dren.

The let­ter signed by at­tor­ney Shiv­anand Mo­han gave Hinds two weeks to re­spond which was not ac­knowl­edged.

A sec­ond let­ter was sent to Hinds on Ju­ly 17, to which the min­istry’s le­gal ser­vices re­spond­ed on Ju­ly 19, ad­vis­ing Mo­han that all gen­er­al cor­re­spon­dence be sent di­rect­ly and phys­i­cal­ly to the ap­pro­pri­ate of­fice hold­ers so that these mat­ters can re­ceive the min­istry’s at­ten­tion in the pre­scribed man­ner.

Ar­mour was al­so ad­vised in a fol­low-up let­ter that any fur­ther de­lay in pro­vid­ing Wa­heed’s trav­el doc­u­men­ta­tion would ef­fec­tive­ly in­fringe on her rights en­shrined by Sec­tion 4 (g) of the T&T Con­sti­tu­tion and giv­en that the prepa­ra­tion of such doc­u­ments would take some time and de­lay it “ex­ac­er­bates an al­ready ten­u­ous sit­u­a­tion.”

The let­ter said that Wa­heed’s de­ten­tion com­menced on Ju­ly 26, 2017, when she was first de­tained and her con­fine­ment to be ter­mi­nat­ed on Ju­ly 26, 2023.

Wa­heed is the bi­o­log­i­cal moth­er and pri­ma­ry care­giv­er of Ra’eesah Hi­bah Ku­mar, 11, and Qasim Ku­mar aged sev­en, who are with­out trav­el doc­u­ments and “should this per­sist up­on the ter­mi­na­tion of her de­ten­tion” they will be ren­dered “state­less and with­out the means to re­turn to Trinidad,” the let­ter stat­ed.

While in de­ten­tion, Wa­heed gave birth to Qasim who is an Iraqi cit­i­zen born to a Trinida­di­an moth­er.

“The Kur­dish au­thor­i­ties deem all the mi­nor chil­dren in her care to be bi­o­log­i­cal chil­dren. The ap­pli­cant (Wa­heed) has a well-found­ed le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that she and her mi­nor chil­dren should be grant­ed emer­gency trav­el doc­u­ments by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” the let­ter said.

It fur­ther stat­ed that the fam­i­ly is a nat­ur­al and fun­da­men­tal group of so­ci­ety.

“Pro­mot­ing fam­i­ly re­uni­fi­ca­tion is crit­i­cal, as out­lined in the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights of 1948 and the Unit­ed Na­tions Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights of 1966,” it said.

It not­ed that T&T has rat­i­fied, in­cor­po­rat­ed and is a sig­na­to­ry to the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child.

“There­fore, the min­istry is man­dat­ed to up­hold the wel­fare and best in­ter­est prin­ci­ple en­shrined in the Con­ven­tion. Thus, we firm­ly be­lieve that both moth­er and chil­dren should be safe­ly con­veyed to Trinidad, as sep­a­rat­ing them would be con­trary to their in­alien­able hu­man rights,” the let­ter point­ed out.

Wa­heed has ex­haust­ed her ap­peals for de­ten­tion in Kur­dis­tan.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at his Port-of-Spain of­fice last week Tues­day , Williams said there was no new leg­is­la­tion in the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Bill to de­bar Wa­heed and her chil­dren from en­ter­ing T&T.

“First you had the Ter­ror­ism Amend­ment Bill where they were go­ing to put chil­dren in prison. That was re­vamped. Then they say more leg­is­la­tion com­ing.”

Williams said that was three years ago.

In 2018, this coun­try passed the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Bill but then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi in 2020 in­di­cat­ed they were propos­ing the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism (Amend­ment Bill) which would out­line spe­cif­ic mea­sures to treat na­tion­als who are re­turn­ing from con­flict zones in the Mid­dle East.

Williams ad­mit­ted that Wa­heed will re­turn as a “con­vict­ed ter­ror­ist.”

He said if the Gov­ern­ment fails to pro­vide trav­el doc­u­ments to Wa­heed it would be a case of “dis­avow­ing” an­oth­er Trinida­di­an.

In March Hu­man Rights Watch counter-ter­ror­ism as­so­ciate di­rec­tor Let­ta Tayler said of the 99 T&T na­tion­als be­ing un­law­ful­ly de­tained in camps in north­east Syr­ia, 56 are chil­dren.

An­ti-ter­ror­ism con­sul­tant: A first for the T&T and the Caribbean

A Unit­ed King­dom an­ti-ter­ror­ism con­sul­tant, who de­clined to be iden­ti­fied, who is fa­mil­iar with Wa­heed’s case said there was a lot of abuse in her judg­ment.

“She did not have a lawyer. Sabi­rah was dragged be­fore a court.”

Wa­heed ad­mit­ted to cross­ing the Iraq bor­der il­le­gal­ly and was jailed for be­ing a mem­ber of a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“Her chil­dren al­so got sen­tenced with their moth­er and were put in prison.”

In ad­di­tion, she was al­so de­nied an ap­peal.

“Sabi­rah was de­nied her ap­peal in a one-time shot.”

The con­sul­tant said a re­port was com­piled re­gard­ing the lack of due process in the Iraqi courts.

“Trinidad has al­ways said they are com­ing out with leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect so­ci­ety from such peo­ple. And the ques­tion would be, where is the leg­is­la­tion? You had three years. Why have you not done it? You have been idle on an is­sue of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

In his view, the Gov­ern­ment should ad­mit that they have failed.

Re­veal­ing that Wa­heed “is the first Caribbean woman to be con­vict­ed of ter­ror­ism and de­port­ed,” from Iraq, he said, “It’s al­so a first for Trinidad.”

In the face of this con­vic­tion, the con­sul­tant point­ed out, “what they can­not es­cape from is the fact she is com­ing home. Once Ju­ly 26th comes, you would not be able to ap­ply any con­trolled mech­a­nism on any woman in Syr­ia or any per­son that has not been con­vict­ed of an of­fence of be­ing a mem­ber of a ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion.”

Wa­heed has not been put on the ter­ror­ism watch list.

He said the Gov­ern­ment should not in­ter­ro­gate or de­tain Wa­heed when she re­turns, as they had am­ple time to do so in Iraq.

“They’ve got mu­tu­al as­sis­tance leg­is­la­tion that would have al­lowed them to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion on this woman,” he ob­served.

Last month, he said the Kur­dis­tan Re­gion want­ed to slap Wa­heed with a sec­ondary charge for some­thing else but changed their minds.

That’s when the push for her trav­el doc­u­ments be­gan.

“There are ways that Trinidad could waive cer­tain con­di­tions ac­cord­ing to the ICAO stan­dards to al­low tem­po­rary trav­el doc­u­ments for Sabi­rah’s son.”

If the Gov­ern­ment re­fus­es to pro­vide Wa­heed with trav­el doc­u­ments, he said the Iraqi au­thor­i­ties may re­move her from her cell and place her in a dor­mi­to­ry un­der an or­der of su­per­vi­sion.

Last Fri­day, the con­sul­tant said he spoke to Wa­heed who wants to re­turn home.

“Her po­si­tion is set­ting a fu­ture for her two chil­dren. She had no in­ten­tion of hurt­ing any­body or get­ting in­volved in any­thing. She thought ac­cord­ing to her teach­ings this was a good thing to do.”

Mo­hammed: Gov­ern­ment prepar­ing leg­is­la­tion

Head of the Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee Nizam Mo­hammed said he was aware of Wa­heed’s case which is a mat­ter for the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry to han­dle.

Mo­hammed said he was not privy to the of­fences for which Wa­heed has been serv­ing.

“We do not know why she was in prison,” he said.

He could not say what Wa­heed’s sta­tus would be.

“And I don’t know that she is go­ing to be de­port­ed,” he said.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed said for peo­ple re­turn­ing from the con­flict zones, “the Gov­ern­ment is in the process of prepar­ing leg­is­la­tion to be tabled in Par­lia­ment re­gard­ing the man­ner in which such re­turnees will be treat­ed. And I do not know of the de­tails of such pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.”

Imam: I will ac­cept my grand­daugh­ter

Rio Claro Imam Nazam Mo­hammed said he would ac­cept Wa­heed who is his grand­daugh­ter and his great-grand­chil­dren in­to his home.

“Sabi­rah is part of our fam­i­ly. I will take her in. I can’t turn my back on my grand­daugh­ter and her chil­dren.”

Mo­hammed said he may not live to see his daugh­ter Aneesa and two grand­daugh­ters re­lease from an Iraqi prison in 2037.

That is the will of Al­lah.”

Mo­hammed could not say how the au­thor­i­ties will deal with Wa­heed when she re­turns.

“We will just have to wait and see.”