One of the men detained in 2011 for allegedly plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other members of the government says he still expects compensation for the wrong that was done to him.Ashmeed Mohammed, now 60, said “the lies told by the government” left a lasting stain on his name and his life.He told the Sunday Express via WhatsApp last week that he now lives in Rio Claro, where he operates a chicken-plucking business and farms.In 2011, he was based in La Romaine, where he ran an import business supplying cooking oil mainly to Chinese establishments, along with tents, tables and chairs. He said business was disrupted when he and other Muslims were targeted by the State.Mohammed was referring to Persad-Bissessar’s 2011 statement that there was a plot to assassinate her, along with then-attorney general Anand Ramlogan and ministers.The alleged plot was cited by the government as the primary reason for declaring a nationwide state of emergency, which began on August 21, 2011, and remained in effect until December 5 that year.In the aftermath, despite no evidence being presented against him, Mohammed said, “The banks sent me letters to come in and they closed all my accounts. All my US accounts, foreign accounts, local accounts. They did not want to have anything to do with me or do business with me anymore. They closed everything. It affected me a lot because I could not continue the import business I was doing.”He described the ordeal as not only religious persecution but also economic oppression.‘Suspiciouscoincidence’Recalling the day he was arrested in 2011, Mohammed said it was a Thursday and he had gone to the bank to wire funds to China for his import business.He said, “When I came out of the bank, a couple of police officers surrounded me with guns and said that I was under arrest for illegal guns, ammunition and drugs. So I said, ‘Alright.’”He said during his detention, which lasted about two weeks, no evidence was presented against him and, moreover, he was never interviewed by anyone in authority. He believes the government never had any evidence.Mohammed also believes the assassination plot was fabricated because, at the time, the government was under pressure from the opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) to demonstrate it was tackling crime.He argued, “When the PNM was in government, the UNC was banging on the PNM about crime. So now it was the PNM’s turn to bang on the government, asking, ‘What are you doing about crime?’“So they (the UNC) wanted to show they were doing something about crime, and what they did was hatch this plot against the Muslim community and hold a few men.”Mohammed pointed to what he called a “suspicious coincidence”—the date the government claimed the alleged plot was to begin was the exact day he and the other Muslims were arrested.He reasoned that while he was detained outside a bank, other men were arrested inside their homes with their wives, while others, he was told, were working in a warehouse.“They found people in normal living conditions, not like they found people in a position to carry out this so-called plot that they say we were supposed to execute,” Mohammed said.He said it was not until the Sunday after his arrest that a policewoman at the Santa Rosa detention centre asked him if he knew why he was being detained.Mohammed said he replied that he did not, but told her the police had cited guns, drugs and ammunition. In addition, he said he explained that up to that point no one had interviewed or spoken to him.He said it was then that he learnt from the police officer that he was being detained for treason in connection with a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister and other members of Cabinet.According to Mohammed, the police officer told him, “They said you was part of a group that was supposed to assassinate the Prime Minister.”He added that the policewoman also told him many people were beginning to believe the government had fabricated the plot, but asked him to keep the conversation between them.Asked whether he knew the other men detained with him, Mohammed said there were about 17 of them and he did not know about 80% of them.He said he knew prominent figures such as Ashmeed Choate, who later died in Syria, and recognised two others from seeing them at the masjid.Singling out David “Buffy” Milliard and Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis, Mohammed said they were also detained, but although he had heard of them, he had never met them before.Family break-upMohammed said the experience fractured his personal relationships. He lamented that even some members of his immediate family stopped speaking to him after his release, and some have never re-established contact.He said concerns about being monitored by police led some relatives to avoid contacting him. Mohammed explained that police had visited an aunt and an uncle at separate homes where he had stayed at different times, and some family members did not want to risk officers turning up at their residences.However, he described other relatives as political fanatics who remained loyal to a political party.“They tell me a lot of stupid things, not understanding that it is their government that plotted against the Muslim community. They did not see it that way. They believed I was part of this plot to assassinate their beloved UNC leader and ministers,” he said.Mohammed said political fanaticism existed among die-hard supporters of both the PNM and the UNC, describing it as a form of brainwashing that prevented many Trinidadians from accepting that their preferred political party could do wrong.Asked whether any government official had ever explained why he was detained, Mohammed replied that no one had. He said that made matters worse because he had a relationship with a government minister at the time, whom he described as an associate.“Being a member of Parliament, whenever he had any Eid celebrations, he would invite me and I would go and participate in the programme,” Mohammed said.He continued, “Not only that, his wife is local Chinese, born here. She was second generation and my wife is from China, first generation. Because his wife is Chinese and my wife is Chinese, we used to hang out. My wife had just come here, so she had no friends. I used to go by his house.”He added that he also did business with the minister’s wife because she imported goods from China.“So we used to hang out, dine with them, and that is the same man they said I was supposed to kill.”Mohammed said that a few days after his release he went to the minister’s office seeking an explanation for his detention and to confront him about the alleged plot.“But the man got really furious with me because I put him on the spot. He got very arrogant,” he said.According to Mohammed, “When people are in power, they become a monster and when they lose power, they come back to being normal human beings again.”He added, “Now, anytime he sees me anywhere, now that he is out of office, he comes and hugs me.”Mohammed said he was living in La Romaine in 2011 but was unable to cope with the public reaction to the allegations.“So I left La Romaine and came up into the forest here in Rio Claro to live. Since then, I have been living here because you just do not want to be in the eyes of the public anymore.”State land ascompensationSpeaking about his efforts to obtain compensation, Mohammed said he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing legal action, without success, against the State despite his lawyer assuring him he had a strategy to win.In hindsight, Mohammed believes he and the other released detainees should have been more aggressive in trying to negotiate a settlement with the government instead of pursuing the matter through the courts.He said he also heard at one point that the government wanted to offer them a settlement, but the men allegedly failed to approach the State prudently.However, he argued that now that the UNC has returned to office, it should make amends for what happened in 2011.“What I think is fair to me and my family, since we paid a price, is that the government is in power now and they did a lot of injustice to me. It is only fair that they give me fair compensation,” Mohammed said, adding, “And they can do that off the record.”Mohammed said as a farmer, he would prefer to be granted a piece of State land so that he could expand his business.