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09 June, 2007
Johannesburg - Efforts were continuing to secure the release of a South African man being held in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, his family said on Friday.
Abdul Hamid Moosa, 41, was studying in Damascus, Syria, since September 2005 but remained in contact with his family in Robertsham, south of Johannesburg.
"We used to talk on the phone all the time, we communicated by computer," said Zakir Ally, Moosa's brother.
In December 2006, the family heard from Moosa for the last time.
"My mother spoke to him on December 27 and I spoke to him on December 29. That was it, after that we had no contact (with him)."
The family was subsequently contacted by a woman from a United Kingdom-based human rights organisation called Reprieve and told that Moosa was being detained in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Held with no charge
"Her name was Clara Gutteridge, she told us he was in Ethiopia - it came as such a shock," Ally recalled.
The family was sceptical about Gutteridge's claim but another call from a person unknown to them, convinced them.
"We got a call from a guy from Sweden, Munir. He was in prison with Abdul. I asked him questions to find out if it was my brother and all the answers confirmed it," he said.
"When I asked him what my brother does there, he said he did a lot of push-ups, I knew it had to be my brother, he loved his push-ups - he was always doing them."
Munir told the family that Moosa was being held without being charged or appearing in court, as he himself had been.
Munir's release was secured by the Swedish government with Reprieve's assistance.
Suspected terrorist
Ally said he was puzzled about how his brother came to be in Ethiopia when he had gone to study in Damascus.
The family contacted Foreign Affairs as well as attorney Zehir Omar, also representing the family of Khalid Rashid.
Rashid was reportedly transported in a charted private jet from the Waterkloof airbase in Pretoria on November 6, last year. He was wanted for suspected involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan.
The department was looking into the matter, Ally said.
"My brother was a model-type person, he married a widow with four children and he followed his dreams," he said, adding that he did not know what charges could be brought against Moosa.
"He liked it so much in Damascus, he said it was free and peaceful, it was so good for him and then we hear all of this."
'Enforced disappearance'
Ally said his sister-in-law was taking her husband's detention "quite badly".
The Media Review Network (MRN) on Friday urged the South African government to secure Moosa's release from the US military base on the Horn of Africa, where they believe he is being kept.
According to MRN chairperson Iqbal Jassat, a report by Reprieve said that Moosa was a victim of "enforced disappearance - abduction or arrest with the connivance of the United States Government and the host state."