DAMMAM, 24 April 2003 — It has been a wait of 22 years and still there is no trace of Ibrahim Al-Gharyafi, a resident of Qatif. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime has rekindled hope among Al-Gharyafi’s family. His son Abdullah Al-Ibrahim is now using all available channels to track down his father in Iraq.
The family’s agony started 22 years ago, when Ibrahim traveled to Karbala in Iraq and married an Iraqi woman there. It was 1981 and that was the last time that his family saw him. He was in touch with them but never returned. Abdullah’s inquiries in Baghdad earlier revealed that his father’s relationship with his new wife — which produced a daughter — had turned sour.
Then all contact between Ibrahim and his family in Qatif, which consisted of a wife and six children, suddenly stopped.
Through contacts they managed to establish in Baghdad they learned that Ibrahim had been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by Saddam Hussein’s regime, on charges of being a member of the Al-Dawa Islamist Party and an anti-Baathist.
Abdullah says that his father was not a political person. “He was a simple man who was not involved in any kind of politics or social movement. His only mistake was that he married an Iraqi woman,” he said.
Abdullah said that his family found out that members of the Iraqi wife’s family “complained to the Iraqi intelligence service that he had links with the Al-Dawa Islamist Party and was a diehard anti-Baathist.” Acting on the complaint, intelligence officers arrested him and he was imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in south Baghdad.
In 1985, Ibrahim’s family received a call from the Iraqi authorities that Ibrahim had died in jail. His last rites were performed by the family members in absentia in Qatif, and the story came to an apparent end.
But in early 1999 the family received information from a recently released Iraqi prisoner who said that he had met Ibrahim at the prison prior to his release. Once again the family became hopeful and Abdullah and his nephew traveled to Baghdad to make inquiries about his father.
They contacted all possible authorities but could not find anything substantial. The records at Abu Ghraib prison did not mention Ibrahim, whether dead or alive. “The authorities were not cooperative at all,” Abdullah said. Another prisoner who was also released just before they arrived in Baghdad confirmed to them that he had met Ibrahim at the prison.
“There was obviously no cooperation from the family of his first wife, and eventually our trip proved futile. But we are sure of one thing: He did not die as we were told by the Iraqi authorities in 1985. He was definitely alive at that time,” said Abdullah.
Now that the regime has gone and the gates of prisons and torture chambers have been opened, Ibrahim’s family has once again become optimistic about his fate. “We are hopeful that one day he will return to the family,” said Abdullah.
The family is now trying to approach their contacts in Iraq and through them the American forces. They are also approaching local authorities in the hope that if the matter is tackled at the official level, they might succeed in locating Ibrahim, who, if alive, is 81 years old.
