Abbasi’s mother, Zumrati Juma, is a Madi from Moyo and niece to Third Deputy Prime Minister Moses Ali. His half-sister and brother, Brenda, 15 and Caleb, 13, are from Bushenyi. Abbasi has absolutely no contact with his father.

Feroz Abbasi was born in Entebbe where his mother was working. His father was a Pakistani, who left ‘Zum’ (as the family affectionately call Zumrati) either before Abbasi was born or shortly after, according to a Kampala businessman, Sam Segirinya.

“I do not think they were ever in touch after the Pakistani left her,” says Segirinya, who became Zum’s brother-in-law soon after. “By the time my brother married her, there was no sign whatsoever of any correspondence between them.”

Zum was married to Frank Mwesigwa, now a flight instructor at Soroti Flying School, for several years and they had two children together — Brenda and Caleb. Mwesigwa was working with Uganda Airlines at the time. Their union met with disapproval from Zum’s muslim family.

“My younger brother was a protestant and people in Zum’s family, like Moses Ali, wanted him to be circumcised. Frank refused!” says Segirinya.

In the late 1980’s, Zum and her three children moved to Britain. Although Segirinya says that she was a pilot while in Uganda, she is now a hospital nurse in London. The family stayed in touch with Zum.

“We had become very close when Frank was retrenched, and I was helping the family,” he explains. “We have been writing to each other and once in a while, we call each other.”

And so while Zum’s children were still very young when they left Uganda, they were always getting news from home and hearing about their “Uncle Sam”. The younger two wanted to see their father.

“I took them to the village in Bushenyi, and their mother also took them to Moyo,” says Segirinya. “But during the visit, I noticed some peculiar things about Abbasi.”
Apparently, Abbasi preffered to lock himself in his room, than to go out with the rest of the family.

“He had come to Uganda with “three big volumes of the Koran and he’d lock himself up in the bedroom for hours, reading them. When anyone interrupted him, he would get very angry,” recalls Segirinya, adding that Brenda and Caleb also complained that Abbasi was always giving their mother trouble.

Although there is little known about Abbasi’s childhood, he is said to have been “a quiet and polite pupil, who achieved impressive GSCE results.” Obviously, something had changed along the way. According to Segirinya, who is also a former teacher, Zum asked him to talk to her son who was threatening to give up school.

“I tried to talk to him, but I knew that it was a waste of time. He wasn’t going to listen to me,” Segirinya laments.

A solo trip to Europe to rethink his future changed Abbasi’s life. While in Switzerland, he was robbed. As he wandered the streets lost and confused, he was approached by a Kashmiri refugee who convinced him to put his trust in Allah. When he returned from his trip, he told his mother that he was leaving studies to “seek Islamic knowledge”.

He sought spiritual guidance at a mosque in Croydon, but complained that the teaching was too superficial. He then transferred his devotions to Finsbury Park Mosque, where the more radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza preaches.

Zum last saw her son on December 12, 2000, when he visited his former home and asked for a pair of army boots. She was struck by how much he had changed. He said he wanted to travel to Afghanistan.

Segirinya says that he was not surprised when he saw the reports in the media that Abbasi had been arrested as member of al-Qaeda.

“I thought that Abbasi’s behaviour was weird when he was in Uganda,” he says, but he adds that he shrugged it off as part of growing up and being difficult. “I never thought that it would get to this extreme.”

Zum has not been in touch with the family in Uganda for a long time. The last letter she wrote was in early 2001, but she never mentioned that her son was missing. Way before the September 11 attack, she had stopped taking their calls.

After September 11 and the counter-attack on Afghanistan, Zum thought about her son. She was afraid that he was dead, and was relieved when his name came up on the list of those sent to Camp X-Ray. At least, he was alive.

She has told the British media that she hopes they will not use the death penalty on her son and other prisoners. And she wants to see her son again.

“Whatever they are going to do to them, at least I have the right to see my son,” she said.