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Ex-Hizbullah Man Reveals Military Training For Mauritians In Qatar
by Kazi Mahmood
JAKARTA (IslamOnline) - A new revelation in the Hizbullah affair in Mauritius has added intrigue in the already thick mystery behind the Squadron of Death that has ripped the island with terror and violence over the past few years.
According to reports, a police star witness, Toorab Bissessur, in a case building up against Hizbullah leader Cehl Meeah Fakeermeah on charges of murder of three political activists in 1996, divulged that he participated in military training in Qatar.
He said he joined the military training camp in the Arab nation as part of his enrollment program for the Hizbullah. The Mauritian government, since 1995, is said to have collected information concerning a Mauritian link to the training camp.
Police in Mauritius state they possess photographs of Bissessur heavily armed and in military fatigues carrying weapons and ammunitions used during training. Police sources said the arms used during the training in Qatar ranged from long-range rifles, semi-automatic guns, machine guns and other heavy equipment commonly used by guerillas and commandos.
Bissessur also revealed that a number of Mauritians have participated in such training camps in the recent past. Police, as yet, do not know whether members of the secret Squadron Of Death underwent such training.
These new elements in an ongoing inquiry that took a sudden turn on Saturday following the triple suicide of fugitive Hizbullah members, would be used by the prosecution in the case against Cehl Meeah, IslamOnline was told.
The collective suicide on Saturday of three suspects, Noorani Boodhoo, Azad Nandoo and Reaz Jamaldeen, in the Hizbollah affair has tarnished the month of Ramadan for the Muslims on the tiny Indian Ocean island.
The suicides also deal a blow to both the police and Fakeermeah, as it narrows whatever evidence the police have against the Hizbullah leader on the revelations of a lone witness.
Members of the Muslim community, including the ulama and politicians, said they regretted the suicides of the three Hizbullah members. They added that the suicides are not allowed in Islam and that they did not understand how the three members of the Hizbullah ended up doing such acts.
One survivor of the collective suicide, police officer Afzal Chummun, suspected to be a member of the Squadron of Death, said the four fugitives took cyanide in order to escape arrest.
For three weeks, Mauritian police had come up empty-handed in their search for more evidence in the gruesome murder of three political agents in 1996. Cehl Meeah is being accused of having given orders to commit the murders.
Yousouf Mohamed, lead counsel for Cehl Meeah, said that much evidence also vanished with the death of the three suspects. While condemning the act by the three suspects, Mohamed said the country now had another death trail, stating that it was saddening for Mauritius.
The three members of the Hizbullah that committed suicide were on the run from the police who were looking for them to assist in the case against Cehl Meeah.
They allegedly participated in the murder of the political activists in 1996 and had been part of several other murders and robberies since then.
Sensational revelations by ex-Hizbullah members led the police to arrest Cehl Meeah, linking him to the three dead fugitives and the famous Squadron.
The Squadron was created to deal with the proliferation of drugs in Muslim dominated areas of the country, particularly in the Port Louis city of Plaine Verte.
The Hizbullah has been linked to the Squadron as some of its members were suspected of being involved in the secret organization that had the tacit and silent support of a large section of the Muslim community.
Drug abuse had become and endemic problem among Mauritius’s Muslims to the extent that in 1985, a group of drug warlords controlled Plaine Verte with open and publicly known support of a high government official.
The arrest of Khadaffi Oozeer last November led police to re-open a classified inquiry after the dismissal of a 1998 court case against two leaders of the Hizbullah, and the most wanted man in Mauritius, Abdul Rahim Coco (aka Bahim Coco), who is still on the run.
The arrest of the Fakeermeah and the abuses he suffered at the hands of the police during the first days of his detention has alienated the Muslim community against the newly elected government of Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth.
Police raids conducted in order to locate the fugitives have been strongly criticized by hostile crowds in several regions of the island. Several demonstrations took place in Port Louis and at the courthouse in Rose Hill where Cehl Meeah was brought for hearings last Tuesday. He will be brought to court again this coming Tuesday.
He is yet to make any depositions to the police and has insisted to review his own depositions made in 1996 after the murder of the three activists of the Labor Party-Movement Militant Mauricien (MMM).
Cehl Meeah insisted that he is the victim of a political conspiracy involving members of the Mauritius cabinet, and that Bissessur’s revelations were false and fabricated.
However, Jugnauth said to Parliament on Friday that following statements given to the police, there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Cehl Meeah was involved in the crimes.
With the triple suicide on Saturday, Cehl Meeah registers a personal setback, eroding his popularity and making it difficult for him to forge a new image if acquitted of the murders, analysts told IslamOnline.
Police are pondering whether the three fugitives who killed themselves with cyanide were involved in the alleged military trainings in Qatar. They say such training might have instructed them, or conditioned the fugitives, to commit suicide in the light of suicide commando tactics.
Mohamed accused Mauritius local dailies and the press of carrying a trial-by-press against Cehl Meeah.
He said the tremendous coverage given to the revelations by ex-Hizbullah members and suspects in the crimes were against the interests of Cehl Meeah. He suggested that he might ask for a gag order if Cehl Meeah is formally indicted for the crimes.
Muslims consist 17% of the Mauritius’s 1.2 million population, and are mostly concentrated in the “underdeveloped” Plaine Verte, a region suffering from political oblivion for more than 30 years.
The Hizbullah party grabbed some five percent of the votes in 1999 general elections, but failed to elect a single member to the Parliament. Muslims believe the party has become a sore in the eyes of the ruling coalition and that the government is trying to get rid of the party.
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