Last night we gave you a short snippet of the police press conference on the Ahmad family raid. The conference was held in Belmopan yesterday evening and neither the Special Branch Commander Marco Vidal nor the Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie gave us much information. But there was one grave and quite frightening generalization as it relates to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS. Commander Vidal first gave his account of what happened on the day of the search and provided a bit more context to the investigation.
Marco Vidal, Special Branch Commander
"Upon executing the operation all persons whose homes were searched and who were detained were told the parameters of the search and the purpose for which we were there. They indicated that they will not answer any questions on the advice of their attorneys and we respect that. They were allowed to go thereafter and that was the process on having their release."
Reporter
"How long were they in custody before they were allowed to get their attorneys involved?"
Marco Vidal, Special Branch Commander
"Their attorneys were involved from the onset, upon the premises search they were cautioned, informed of their constitutional rights, some of them elected to call their attorneys, some of them declined, those who reached their attorneys had communicated to us that their attorneys told them to go through the process and they will be met at the station and so they did."
"The warrant was specific in terms of the items that we could cease, we could not go outside of that. I think it included electronic devices and paper documents that would afford us the kind of evidence that we would require in investigating the offense of conspiracy to damage to property and conspiracy to commit murder."
Reporter
"Those electronic items that you had in your possession for a while, were you able to take copies of them? Were you able to read digital footprints on those?"
Marco Vidal, Special Branch Commander
"As I explained and I'll say again, we will not go into the details of the investigation."
Marco Vidal, Special Branch Commander
"I will not and will never conduct any operation targeting any person because of their religion or ethnicity for that matter. As I said, I can't go into the intricacies of the investigation, I can tell you generally that we have no confirmed reports in Belize of ISIS being involved directly with Belize. As you may know, persons have been recruited by the ISIS in parts of the Caribbean and we cannot be naive to the fact that it can happen here in Belize or it could happen here in Belize."
Reporter
"Mr. Vidal, that exact question and a follow up to what my colleagues asked, is the information that the police department received or you have, is it such a threat to national security or to the wellbeing of us all that you will round up an entire family, grandparents, children, everybody?"
Marco Vidal, Special Branch Commander
"As I have said, I can't go into the intricacies of the investigation, I can go as far as to say that we consider the information that we have, of a serious nature."
When we spoke to Fareed Ahmad today he told us that he is filing a major law suit against the government and that he will not get into any back and forth with the police. He says everything will be dealt with in court. Ahmad also says that this raid has caused and continues to cause pain, embarrassment and emotional distress to the family. The family also got back its computers and electronic equipment.
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