SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Rio Claro Imam Naz­im Mo­hammed is singing prais­es to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his com­mit­ment to bring­ing back over 100 T&T na­tion­als cur­rent­ly ei­ther held or im­pris­oned in Syr­ia and Iraq.

Mo­hammed, who heads the Masjid Umar Khat­tab Ja­maat, has a 58-year-old daugh­ter, Aneesa Mo­hammed-Wa­heed, in Iraq cur­rent­ly serv­ing a 20-year sen­tence with her three daugh­ters Aidah, 23, Az­izah, 32, and Sabi­rah, 29, for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing the coun­try.

The three grand­daugh­ters are in camps and pris­ons with their ten chil­dren.

Mo­hammed could not give the ages of the chil­dren or say how many are male or fe­male.

“These chil­dren are young and have been go­ing through a lot. We are hop­ing for them to come back home soon,” Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Two weeks ago, Mo­hammed spoke about 15 of his fam­i­ly mem­bers—in­clud­ing his son, grand­chil­dren and in-laws—who went to war-torn Syr­ia and Iraq to be­come ISIS fight­ers, stat­ing they are like­ly dead.

Since they se­cret­ly left T&T be­tween 2015 and 2018 to join the ex­trem­ist ter­ror­ist group, Mo­hammed has not re­ceived word from these rel­a­tives.

Checks by the In­ter­na­tion­al Red Cross in­to their where­abouts al­so came up emp­ty-hand­ed.

Mo­hammed fears his son Musab Mo­hammed, daugh­ter-in-law Cassie Bis­soon-Mo­hammed, grand­daugh­ter Sum­i­ah, her hus­band Akeil and their-14-year-old son, Samir, are dead.

How­ev­er, he in­sist­ed that these rel­a­tives left Trinidad un­known to him and he was al­so not an ISIS re­cruiter.

Re­spond­ing to PM Row­ley’s com­mit­ment to bring the de­tainees home, Mo­hammed, 82, said it was long over­due.

“I want to per­son­al­ly thank the Prime Min­is­ter for his de­ci­sion to bring home these de­tainees who have been suf­fer­ing abroad. I am so hap­py about what he has done. Al­lah will sure­ly bless and re­ward him im­mense­ly.”

Mo­hammed said when some­one frees a cap­tive, they re­ceive bless­ings. He said the news by Row­ley was wel­com­ing.

“All I can say is Al­ham­dulil­lah (praise to Al­lah)...and praise to the Prime Min­is­ter.”

He said the PM’s move al­so comes at the best time for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty— dur­ing the Holy Month of Ra­madan.

Last Mon­day, Row­ley ap­point­ed for­mer House speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed to head a three-man com­mit­tee to over­see the repa­tri­a­tion process which will in­volve sev­er­al tech­ni­cal is­sues. The oth­er two mem­bers of the com­mit­tee are Is­lam­ic leader Kwe­si At­i­ba and for­mer am­bas­sador Patrick Ed­wards.

Mo­hammed said he ex­pects the repa­tri­a­tion process by the com­mit­tee will take some time, giv­en the is­sues they have to deal with.

“We don’t know how long the process would take. We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed that all goes well... Al­ham­dulil­lah. This is the best news the fam­i­lies of the de­tainees could have re­ceived.”

Mo­hammed said no mem­ber of the com­mit­tee had con­tact­ed him yet but said he will wait on his turn to be in­ter­viewed.

“I am not go­ing to rush things. Every­thing has to take its course. I don’t want to seem like I am push­ing up my­self.”

Still, he hopes that be­fore the end of this year, those held in camps and pris­ons would re­turn home to restart their lives.

Mo­hammed said while his great­est wish is to be re­unit­ed with his daugh­ter, grand­daugh­ters and grand­chil­dren, an­oth­er is to meet his Lord and be in Par­adise.

“If I don’t live to see them re­turn home, we will meet in Par­adise one day. We be­lieve in the af­ter­life,” he said.

Pressed on if the Rio Claro com­mu­ni­ty would em­brace his rel­a­tives back in­to so­ci­ety, Mo­hammed said yes. He said the chil­dren would at­tend pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools in Boos Vil­lage which are pri­vate­ly man­aged by them.

“The ten grand­chil­dren would be able to at­tend these schools. They will get an ed­u­ca­tion, which is key.”

Mo­hammed said he had ac­com­mo­da­tion for all of them at his home, stat­ing he can­not turn his back on his flesh and blood.

Ad­mit­ting he had not heard from his daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ters in quite a while, he said, “Every time they call they would cry stat­ing that they want to come back home. They wrote nu­mer­ous let­ters to the au­thor­i­ties high­light­ing the con­di­tions they are sub­ject­ed to but nev­er got a re­sponse. I don’t know why they were ig­nored.”

Mo­hammed said he has not reached out to his rel­a­tives to re­lay the good news.

“But soon enough, they will find out.”

Mo­hammed came un­der the radar in 2009 when he was in­ter­viewed by FBI agents pri­or to T&T host­ing the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as.

The agents want­ed to know if Mo­hammed was a threat to then-Amer­i­can pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma dur­ing his at­ten­dance at the Sum­mit.

He then be­came a sub­ject of in­ter­est to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, who searched his mosque for arms and am­mu­ni­tion but came up emp­ty-hand­ed.