AG: Murder in mosque not a hate crime

The killing of 57-year-old businessman Hanniff Mohammed inside a mosque in Couva on Friday, should not be labelled as an act of terrorism nor a hate crime, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said today.

The AG, a Muslim, denounced attempts to compare the murder of Mohammed to the recent March mass killings at a masjid in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“There is no way we are going to compare this murder to the incident in New Zealand, that act of terrorism is not what happened in central on Friday. What happened was that someone was chased into a masjid and killed. That certainly does not sound like a hate crime or an act of terrorism, that sounds like a murder,” Al-Rawi said today.

The AG expressed condolences to the family saying that the killing of the businessman was now being investigated by police and every murder in this country was unacceptable.

“It is even more tragic in the manner this killing occurred and in the month of Ramadan,” he said, “But I will not read into that, that it is an act of terrorism targeted against Muslims. I want to totally denounce any attempt to do that.”

Concerned Muslims of TT PRO Imtiaz Mohammed said the murder of Mohammed has made him reflect on the mass killings in New Zealand.

“After the New Zealand massacre, the media asked me, if I felt the same thing can happen here, I said, 'don't rule it out'. And today we have the brutal and violent murder of Haniff in the Junon Street Masjid,” he said.

Imtiaz said the country has been under siege for the past decade and it seemed to be getting worse day after day. The criminals, he said, are ahead of the game when compared to the law enforcement agencies and the police are trying to play catch up to no avail.

On Friday, at about 1.30 pm, eyewitnesses said the businessman was mingling with fellow Muslims at the Junon Street West Masjid in Couva when he was approached by a gunman. Mohammed then ran up a flight of stairs and into a prayer room where he was killed him.