Imam gets legal advice on children in Iraq

NAZIM MOHAMMED, of Rio Claro, whose child and grandchildren are in Iraq, has sought legal advice on how his family could be brought back home.

Mohammed, 72, a former member of the jamaat-al-muslimeen, now Imam of Boos Village jamaat, said that he spoke to granddaughter Sabirah Mohammed-Kumar, 24, on Tuesday, from her detention centre in Bhagdad.

The call was made courtesy the prison authorities there.

Mohammed said, “My granddaughter said where she is, is not a good environment for her children. She again pled for the Government to send all the documents to bring back the children home. Sabirah said that 20 children from Russia get send home last week.”

Mohammed-Kumar has two children, Raisa, six, and Quasim, two, the latter born in Iraq. She is among two other sisters and their mother and father, Aneesa, 53, and Daud, 56, respectively, who left Boos village for Iraq in 2015. Aneesa was sentenced in April last year to 20 years in jail for entering the country illegally. Husband Daud is feared killed.

Mohammed told Newsday that his granddaughter was allowed a call weekly and she sent letters to the family in Boos village, via Red Cross International.

He said, on Tuesday, he held a meeting with attorney Nafeesa Mohammed who gave him certain legal advice.

“We had an hour-long meeting. She is working along with an NGO to deal with the whole issue of the families, especially the women and children who are helpless, to understand what caused them to end up in the situation they are in,” Mohammed said.

Mohammed (Nafeesa), a former state attorney and legal adviser in the Prime Minister’s office, has expressed the view that Government should not seek to penalise the women and children on a perception that they have been indoctrinated by the terrorist ISIS organisation.