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Iran's Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi, has expressed concern about the abduction of Iranian cleric, Mohammad Hassan Ebrahimi, two Fridays ago by armed men who shot and injured his colleague in the process. A report carried yesterday by the Agence France Presse said that Kharrazi discussed the issue in a recent telephone conversation with his Guyanese counterpart. "We are worried about the kidnapping of an Iranian religious scholar and researcher in Guyana. We want the necessary action to be taken to release him as soon as possible and for the abductors to be prosecuted," the AFP quoted the minister as saying in the Iranian capital Tehran. A team of policemen, on Thursday morning, raided and interrogated staff members of the ISA Islamic School in East Street, Georgetown, in what proved to be a futile search for the abducted Iranian. Officials of the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT) have since condemned the move and threatened legal action while denying any insinuations of conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Guyana. The GIT also pleaded for Ebrahimi to be released and reunited with his wife, Shahnaz, who is eight months pregnant. Shahnaz has also criticised the police raid on the ISA Islamic School. "It is wrong. It is nonsense," she told Stabroek News yesterday. There have been no ransom demands for Ebrahimi's return or any other form of contact from his abductors, a fact that Shahnaz finds deeply frustrating. "I try [to be okay]. I cannot do anything but pray and pray," she said, adding that the Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela recently visited her to inquire of her welfare and the circumstances surrounding the abduction among other issues. Ebrahimi, 35, is the Director of the International Islamic College for Advanced Studies located at 42 United Nations Place, Brickdam, where the abduction occurred. Raymond Halley, 51, is the IICAS Administrator who was shot and injured when he attempted to flee the scene. Local Shia leader, Sheikh Salim Ibn Abdul Kadir, had told Stabroek News that Halley was unable to provide any substantial details on the abductors. The police anti-kidnapping squad has been involved in the search for the cleric. |
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