Shakeel Mohamed Explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Honourable
Shakeel Mohamed
MP
Order:Leader of the Opposition
President:Prithvirajsing Roopun
Primeminister:Pravind Jugnauth
Term Start:15 December 2019
Order1:Leader of the Labour Party Parliamentary Group
President1:Kailash Purryag
Ameenah Gurib
Leader1:Navin Ramgoolam
Term Start1:20 December 2014
Term End1:10 October 2019
Order2:Minister of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment
President2:Anerood Jugnauth
Kailash Purryag
Primeminister2:Navin Ramgoolam
Term Start2:18 May 2010
Term End2:6 October 2014
Order3:Member of Parliament
for
Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East
Term Start3:18 May 2010
Birth Date:25 August 1968
Birth Place:Port-Louis, Mauritius
Spouse:Hacinna Mohamed[1]
Parents:Yousuf Mohamed & Zeinah Mohamed[2]
Children:Aydiin Mohamed Raheel MohamedMika’il MohamedAylan Mohamed
Party:Labour Party(2000–present)
MSM (1993–2000)
Comité d'Action Mauricien (2000)[3]
Website:http://mclawoffices.net/staff/shakeel-mohamed/
Occupation:Politician
barrister
Alma Mater:University of Lille, University of Buckingham

Shakeel Ahmed Yousuf Abdul Razack Mohamed[4] (born on 25 August 1968) is a Mauritian Barrister and politician.

Early life, family and education

Shakeel Mohamed is the son of Yousuf Mohamed, former MP and Minister who is himself the son of Indian born-Mauritian Minister Abdool Razack Mohamed[5] with his second wife, Ghislaine Ducasse.[6]

Shakeel Mohamed is an alumnus of the Collège du Saint-Esprit where he was also head of the Debate Club.

Shakeel Mohamed is an alumnus of the University of Buckingham, where he studied law. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1990 by the Middle Temple Inns of Court.[7]

Political career

Mohamed started his political career as a member of the Militant Socialist Movement (MSM) and was a candidate of the MSM-RMM alliance at the December 1995 National Assembly elections in Constituency No.2 (Port Louis South and Port Louis Central)[8] but he was not elected with 14.8% of votes. He was a member of the MSM of Anerood Jugnauth but later disagreed with him on policy issues.

At the September 2000 National Assembly elections Shakeel Mohamed was candidate in Constituency No.3 (Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East) of the party called Comité d'Action Mauricien, which was different from the original Comité d'Action Musulman (CAM). However he was again not elected and received 11.2% of votes. He then resigned from MSM and joined the Labour Party in 2000.[9]

At the July 2005 National Assembly elections Shakeel Mohamed was candidate of Alliance Sociale (Labour-PMXD-VF-MR-MMSM) in Constituency No.13 (Rivière des Anguilles and Souillac) and was elected for the first time with 49.3% of votes.[10]

At the May 2010 National Assembly elections he was candidate of the Labour-PMSD-MSM coalition in Constituency No.3 (Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East) and was elected for the second time with 40.2% of votes. He was appointed as Minister in the cabinet of Navin Ramgoolam from 2010 to 2014.[11]

At the December 2014 National Assembly elections he was candidate of the Labour-MMM coalition in Constituency No.3 (Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East) and was elected for the third time with 44.6% of votes. Shakeel was a member of the Opposition from 2014 to 2019. He became the Leader of the Labour Party Parliamentary Group when party leader Navin Ramgoolam was not elected to parliament in 2014.[12]

In 2019 Shakeel Mohamed was candidate of Alliance Nationale (Labour-PMSD) at the November 2019 National Assembly elections in Constituency No.3 (Port Louis Maritime and Port Louis East) and was elected for the fourth time with 52.0% of votes. He joined the Opposition again from 2019 onwards.[13] He also became Opposition Whip and member of the Standing Orders Committee.[14]

Controversies

Sharia, Muslim Personal Law and Polygamy

Shakeel Mohamed has been a proponent of the controversial Muslim Personal Law (MPL) which allows polygamy. He expressed the view that is if a man's religion allows polygamy, then he should be allowed to have more than one wife. Sharia has been a politically divisive issue in Mauritius since the 1960s. Just before his defeat at the 1982 general elections Seewoosagur Ramgoolam's government enacted and promulgated the MPL, but in 1987 Anerood Jugnauth's government repealed the Muslim Personal Law as it discriminated against Muslim women. In 1995 Labour Party and the MMM promised to reintroduce Sharia.[15] [16] [17]

Arms trafficking network

In 2012 the Consumers Advocacy Platform (CAP) reported the existence of a network for the trafficking of weapons in Africa which involved Russians in partnership with Shakeel Mohamed's family, namely his brother Zakir Mohamed (CEO of company Island Air System Limited, incorporated on 13 April 2011), and whose legal advisor was their father Yousuf Mohamed. Kathi Lynn Austin, the American executive director of CAP, wrote about the formation of a new aircraft chartering company in Mauritius to enable activities of Viktor Bout, an international arms trafficker. However in early 2019 the Supreme Court of Mauritius ordered Austin to pay Rs 1.2 Million to the Mohamed in damages, although Austin failed to appear in the Mauritian courts.[18] [19]

Gorah Issac triple murders

On 23 November 2015 Shakeel Mohamed was arrested for suspected conspiracy to commit murder, giving instructions to commit murder and procurement of revolver which resulted in the murders of 3 political activists Zulfikhar Bheeky, Babal Joomun and Yousouf Moorad by gunfire at Gorah Issac Road in Plaine Verte, Port Louis on 26 October 1996 during the campaign for municipal elections. Since 1996 these political assassinations became known as Affaire Gorah Issac. At these 1996 elections Shakeel Mohamed was the candidate for the MSM in the ward of Vallée-Pitot. At the start of the scandal and on 27 October 1996 Paul Bérenger, whose party MMM was in alliance with Navin Ramgoolam's Labour Party, openly accused Shakeel Mohamed for his involvement in the triple murders.

On 9 November 2015, accompanied by her lawyer Vikash Teeluckdharry, Babal Joomun's widow Swaleha Joomun went to the Central CID within Line Barracks to make a new statement to the police against 7 individuals, where she also supplied newspaper cuttings, and a USB drive to the investigators. Swaleha Joomun, who left Mauritius in 2003 with her 3 daughters to resettle in England, thus triggered a third round of investigations 19 years after the incident. In 2000 the "star witness" Khadafi Oozeer alleged that one week prior to the shootings Shakeel Mohamed had a confrontation with Babal Joomun regarding their rival parties' propaganda posters. Oozeer also alleged that, as a result of the confrontation, Shakeel Mohamed had given instructions on using a van during the fatal shootings. However in December 2015 the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges against Mohamed.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kargoo . Christophe . Au pays des délices . 5Plus . 2012-06-15.
  2. Web site: Capery . Fateema . Yousuf Mohamed : Ma vie en images . Defimedia . 4 September 2016.
  3. Web site: Results of 2000 elections . https://web.archive.org/web/20200720051536/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/electionresult/nasselec/Documents/2000/allyr2000.pdf . Government of Mauritius . 17 August 2024. 20 July 2020. dead.
  4. Web site: Mohamed Shakeel Ahmed Yousuf Abdul Razack . Mauritius National Assembly . 4 December 2019.
  5. Web site: Quand Yousuf Mohamed raconte son père sir Abdool Razack . 5Plus . 4 December 2019 . French.
  6. Web site: Shakeel Mohamed, pourquoi je me bats . 5 Plus . 2021-06-18.
  7. Web site: Shakeel Mohamed . MC Law . 4 December 2019.
  8. Web site: Results of 1995 Elections. Government of Mauritius. https://web.archive.org/web/20160413004854/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/electionresult/nasselec/Documents/1995/allyr95.pdf. 13 April 2016. 17 August 2024. dead.
  9. Web site: Shakeel Mohamed - Home . 29 July 2019 . 29 July 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190729202004/https://shakeelmohamed.info/ . dead .
  10. Web site: Results of 2005 elections. Government of Mauritius . https://web.archive.org/web/20200720054050/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/electionresult/nasselec/Documents/2005/nae2005.pdf . 20 July 2020. 17 August 2024. dead.
  11. Web site: Results of 2010 elections . https://web.archive.org/web/20200429015026/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/electionresult/nasselec/Documents/all/resultsNAE2010.pdf. Government of Mauritius . 17 August 2024. 29 April 2020. dead.
  12. Web site: Results of 2014 elections . https://web.archive.org/web/20200712160951/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/electionresult/nasselec/Documents/2014/Detailed%20Results%20for%20all%20Cons%202014.pdf. Government of Mauritius . 17 August 2024. 12 July 2020. dead.
  13. Web site: Results of 2019 elections . https://web.archive.org/web/20200720050333/http://electoral.govmu.org/English/Documents/NAE2019/Results/Detailed%20results%20for%20all%20cons.pdf . Government of Mauritius . 17 August 2024. 20 July 2020. dead.
  14. Web site: Profile of Hon. Mohamed Shakeel . Government of Mauritius . 26 July 2020.
  15. Web site: Prayag . Touria . Shakeel Mohamed: Mauritians don’t want to do hard jobs . L'Express . 2010-08-06.
  16. Web site: Muslim Personal Law, a Gordian knot . L'Express . 2004-01-27.
  17. Web site: MPL: the decision is up to the Muslim community . L'Express . 2004-03-02.
  18. Web site: Trafic d’armes allégué : Austin devra verser Rs 1,2 M aux Mohamed . Le Mauricien . 2019-02-23.
  19. Web site: Prosper . Lindsay . Trafic d’armes allégué : Ramgoolam affirme que Shakeel Mohamed n’est pas impliqué . L'Express . 2012-07-27.
  20. Web site: Peerbaye . Nafiisah . Affaire Gorah Issac: les charges retenues contre Shakeel Mohamed rayées . L'Express . 2015-12-15.
  21. Web site: Gopal . Sunil . BLOG Pointing a finger at the system . Defimedia . 2015-11-27.
  22. Web site: Affaire Gorah Issac: Shakeel Mohamed libéré sous caution . L'Express . 2015-11-23.
  23. Web site: Gangaram . Jean-Marie . Réouverture de l'enquête sur l'affaire Gorah Issac: les confidences de Swaleha Joomun et de Shakeel Mohamed . 5Plus . 2015-07-15.
  24. Web site: Seblin . Michaëlla . La vie anglaise de Swaleha Joomun . 5Plus . 2004-12-15.
  25. Web site: Affaire Gorah-Issac: tout savoir en 26 minutes . Defimedia . 2015-11-23.
  26. Web site: 19 ans après: Le triple assassinat de Gorah Issac refait surface . Le Mauricien . 2015-11-26.
  27. Web site: Ramdin . Al Khizr . Pohrun . Yaasin . Khadafi Oozeer: «J’avais incriminé Shakeel Mohamed pour sauver ma peau» . Defimedia . 2015-11-24.