Lethem hotel owner seized in Brazil
-$5M ransom being sought
By Nigel Williams
Stabroek News
June 27, 2003
A joint police/army team has been dispatched to Rupununi to assist Brazilian police in the search for Lethem hotel owner, Mohamed Khan, who was abducted in the neighbouring country.
Khan was taken off a bus on Sunday south of Boa Vista by three men identifying themselves as Brazilian law enforcers.
Khan, 49 of Lethem, Central Rupununi is a father of three and is the owner of the Savannah Inn Guest House. Yesterday morning the abductors made contact with Khan’s family and demanded $5M for his release.
Eyewitnesses said that one of the perpetrators was a Guyanese, while the other two might be Brazilians. Other reports described all the men as being typical Brazilians.
The men, who some reports have as being dressed in Brazilian police uniforms, ordered Khan off the bus at a small town called Mucajae, about 80-100 km south of Boa Vista. They drove off with him in a white car in the direction of Boa Vista and investigations so far discount him being held in Manaus. Inquiries at police stations in both cities have so far failed to find Khan.
Khan was going to Manaus on what was said to be a visit to Guyana’s Honorary Consul to Brazil, Paulo do Vale, to inform him about his impending visit to Canada for a vacation. He was also expected to purchase various items. Khan also has a large supermarket and was known to go on shopping trips to Manaus. Minister of Home Affairs, Ronald Gajraj told reporters that the call to the family yesterday, at about 1:45 am, provided a basis for the law enforcers to work with their counterparts. He said the joint services team, deployed to Lethem comprised policemen who had recently returned from anti-kidnapping training in Trinidad. He said the officers have been in contact with civil police in Brazil, the respective embassies and the consulate office in Boa Vista.
Gajraj said the evidence so far had led them to believe that there could be collusion between Guyanese and Brazilians in the kidnapping. He said the joint services had also traced telephone numbers registered to Guyanese and Brazilians.
Efforts by this newspaper yesterday to contact do Vale were unsuccessful while officers at the Brazilian Embassy in Georgetown disclosed that they were only informed about the incident through Guyana’s Foreign Ministry and a relative of Khan’s.
Khan’s wife, Linda, told Stabroek News yesterday that she had been in contact with the joint services ranks in Lethem. She said her eldest child along with another relative and a member of the RCC had visited Brazil yesterday to conduct their own search and investigations.
Giving an account of the kidnapping as told to her by an eyewitness, Linda said her husband had left his home at about 6 am on Sunday en route to Manaus to meet with Vale. According to Linda, Khan was accompanied by his son-in-law to the crossing from Lethem to Brazil.
She said eyewitnesses to the kidnapping told her that the businessman had joined a 52-seat bus at Bom Fin in Brazil which transported him to Boa Vista and at Boa Vista he caught another bus en route to Manaus. She said Khan had joined the bus at Boa Vista at exactly 10 am and one hour after he had departed, three men dressed in what appeared to be police uniforms pulled up next to the minibus in a white car and flagged it down.
She reported that the three identified themselves to the driver as police officers and after asking Khan to open his bag, immediately ordered him to disembark the vehicle. They bundled him into the car and sped off in the direction of Boa Vista. Linda said eyewitnesses told her that the three men also took away Khan’s money and other personal belongings which he had in his possession.
After realising that her husband had not arrived in Manaus that evening, Linda said she became very frantic, noting that whenever he went to Brazil to do business he would call when he arrived there. The woman recounted that she tried making contact with him on Sunday evening and on Monday morning. She said she also called Vale asking him about her husband but he too knew nothing. However, later in the day Guyanese who had been on bus, contacted her and told her about Khan’s abduction. She said at first she had dismissed reports that he had been kidnapped, adding that he was a regular visitor to Brazil and nothing of the sort had happened to him before.
She could not understand why someone would want to do something like that to her husband, noting that Khan had only recently visited Manaus to conduct business. She said he was not carrying large sums of cash. Linda wondered whether anyone had inside information about his business and was acting on information that he was leaving the country.
Linda said since Monday she had contacted police stations in Manaus, Boa Vista and Lethem. They have also dispatched photographs of him to television stations in Brazil and are calling on those who are holding him to release him immediately.
Linda said, “on behalf of my family and I, we are asking you to help us find Khan.”
A source in Brazil said kidnappings in that part of the country were relatively rare but suggested that Khan may have been targeted because he was known to go shopping in Manaus and would need to carry large sums of cash.
In a statement the Association of Regional Chambers of Commerce (ARCC) of which Khan is a founder member, urged the governments on both sides, the embassies and police, to ensure his safe return. The statement also noted that Khan was a very prominent businessman and entrepreneur who over the years had created links between Guyana and Brazil through trade.
The 49-year-old Khan hails from Little Baiboo in the Mahaica River and his wife is from West Coast Berbice. According to his wife, he left the coast at the age of 17 to become at teacher in Lethem. Linda said her husband taught for 20 years, before tendering his resignation and later establishing the Savannah Inn Guest House in 1993. Apart from being RCC president, Khan is currently the President of the Rodeo Committee, Chairman of the Rupununi Day Committee and a member of the Tourism Board in Lethem. He had also served as a councillor on the Lethem Neighbourhood Democratic Council.
