THE Iranian cleric who was kidnapped in Georgetown last month was executed and his body buried in a shallow grave, police reported yesterday.
Police said Mohammad Hassan Ebrahimi, 35, was shot twice in the head and buried in a grave about three feet deep, some 400 yards off the St. Cuthbert's Mission trail and about three-and-a-half miles in from the Linden/Soesdyke highway.
The partly decomposed body was found after residents told police there was an unbearable stench from a point on the trail leading to the Amerindian settlement at St. Cuthbert's.
Police said they dug up the grave at about 18:15 hrs Tuesday and found the body lying face down with the mouth taped, hands tied behind the back and feet tied.
There were two gunshot wounds to the head, police said in a statement.
The body was positively identified by Abdul Kadir of the school, which Ebrahimi headed, and a close friend of the family, police said.
"A silver cap on one of the lower left dentures and finger ring aided the identification process", the statement said.
A post mortem was done in Georgetown yesterday morning and the body handed over to relatives for burial, police reported.
Residents in the area said they became aware of the shallow grave after the stench became unbearable while traversing the trail on their way to the Amerindian settlement.
Ebrahimi was forced into a getaway motorcar after gunmen discharged a volley of bullets at his car which was parked outside the International Islamic College for Advanced Studies (IICAS) on Brickdam, Georgetown on the night of April 2, last.
His administrator, Raymond Halley was shot in the foot but escaped the kidnappers.
Police here were baffled by the abduction because Ebrahimi's captors did not contact his family and made no ransom demand.
His wife, also Iranian, is pregnant with their first child and had been anxiously awaiting word on her husband who moved to Guyana about 22 months ago.
Four Iranian police detectives and Iran's ambassador to Guyana, Ahmad Sobhani, who is based in Venezuela, came to Georgetown last week to assist local authorities in their investigations.
The body was taken to the Le Repentir morgue where police and members of the Muslim community witnessed the post mortem yesterday morning.
A relative of Ebrahimi's wife Mrs. Shahanaz Ibrahimi was also there.
Kadir who saw the body while it was being examined yesterday told reporters, "based on my observations and the knowledge of Ebrahimi's physical characteristics, and based on the garments he had on, and a ring he was wearing on his finger, I am at liberty to say that that represents Ebrahimi."
Police said the Iranian scholar was wearing the same clothes he had last been seen alive in.