Imams coming home tomorrow

The three imams recently released from detention in Venezuela will arrive home at 11.20 am tomorrow via CAL, says Imtiaz Mohammed, their colleague. Mohammed said the three, who were released after being detained on March 19, had been given their passports to return home. But he said the Venezuelan authorities have kept the passports belonging to other people whom the three had taken to Venezuela to obtain visas to travel to Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage. Mohammed said the Foreign Affairs Ministry and T&T’s Caracas embassy had written to the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Venezuela to have the passports returned. The trio—Hamza Mohammed and Sheik Hassan Hamid, of the Las Lomas mosque, and Abdus Salaam of Marabella Jamaat—were held under Venezuela’s terrorism act. T&T had appealed a ruling by the Venezuelan authorities that imams should be held without bail and Venezuela on Tuesday released them without charge.