The mother of the missing three-year-old boy whose search led authorities to discover 11 starving children along with five Muslim adults in a remote ‘terrorist training camp’ in New Mexico has told how her husband said he was taking their son to the park, then walked out and never returned.
Speaking on Hakima Ramzi’s behalf attorney and family friend Shariyf Muhammad has revealed her husband, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s cold-hearted deception.
And he has told of Ramzi’s devastation that skeletal remains of a child were found in the compound 145 miles northeast of Amalia, New Mexico. She has yet to be formally told they are those of her son, Abdul-Ghani, but other family members including her father-in-law have been told it is the disabled three-year-old.
He said, ‘I think this has been mischaracterized as a custody battle because it’s been reported that he ‘took the child.’
‘But they were married, they’re still married although he chose to estrange himself by his actions.
‘Hakima told us, “He told me he was taking Abdul-Ghani to the park for a little while.” She had no reason to think any different.’
Ordeal: Hakima Ramzi’s attorney told DailyMail.com: ‘Hakima told us, “He told me he was taking Abdul-Ghani to the park for a little while.” She had no reason to think any different.’


Child snatch: Siraj ibn Wahhaj, told his first, legal, wife Hakima Ramzi that he was taking Abdul-ghani to the park. Now he has been found was buried in his father’s compound in New Mexico

The compound is in the desert in New Mexico. It was put together with trailers and the children had been there for months

Also in court was Wahhaj’s polygamous second wife, Jany Leveille, who is believed to be the mother of some of the children and was charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse
He added: ‘She’s having a very hard time right now. Hakima is a mother whose son has been missing for nine months and she has gone through every range of emotion from anger to sadness to despair to helplessness to fear, anxiety and a desire for revenge.’
As far as Ramzi was concerned, Muhammad explained, her 15-year-marriage to Ibn Wahhaj, 39, who took the child on December 1 last year, was ‘uneventful.’
Looking back, Mr Muhammad said, Ramzi has conceded that there were ‘strains’ in her marriage and that her husband was ‘acting differently’ but could not expand on quite how.
He said, ‘With hindsight, knowing the outcome, perhaps she might have read into things differently but there was nothing that set off red flags for her.’
It has since emerged that Ibn Wahhaj told Ramzi who is originally from Morocco that he was going to perform an ‘exorcism’ of the child whom he thought was ‘possessed by evil.’
Abdul-Ghani suffered from disabilities that meant he had seizures and needed medication and special care.
Muhammad said that Abdul-Ghani whose fourth birthday fell on Monday ‘wasn’t your average child.’
He said, ‘He had health circumstances he was dealing with but to Hakima he was her “miracle baby”.
‘She had tried so long to conceive before she finally had him and so he was, at least in her eyes, the best thing ever. He was perfect.
‘She didn’t feel that he was in any way deprived of enjoying life. He was having a good life and she thought they were having a good life together.’
Now, Muhammad said, she is ‘trying to navigate the criminal justice system’ with his help and that of fellow attorney M Khurran Baig of The Baig Firm in Norcross, Georgia.
Authorities entered the camp established by Ibn Wahhaj, his brother-in-law Lucas Morton, 40, sisters Hujrah, 38, and Subhanah Wahhaj, 35, and Jany Leveille, 35, – also described as Ibn Wahhaj’s wife – on Friday.

Photographs taken on the compound on Tuesday show what looks like a make-shift target practice range

Weapons found at the compound in New Mexico where Wahhaj was training 11 children to carry out school shootings, according to the prosecution


Sisters Subhanah Wahhaj, 35, (left) and Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, (right) were arrested on Sunday. They are Siraj’s sisters
The FBI had been monitoring it for some time but Taos County officers moved in after they intercepted a message from one inside the camp asking for help and saying ‘we are starving.’
Muhammad said that Ramzi has been ‘shocked’ by Taos County New Mexico prosecutors’ assertions that her husband had been training the children – ages between 1 and 15 – to commit mass school shootings.
Neighboring landowners have told of hearing gunshots coming from the compound and investigators found evidence of target practice.
Ibn Wahhaj was heavily armed with an AR-15, 30 rounds of ammunition and four pistols, one of which he was carrying when he was arrested. Loaded firearms were within easy reach of the children.
Muhammad said, ‘There was nothing in her relationship with Mr. Ibn Wahhaj that led Hakima to think he was planning anything of that nature. She was shocked by the reports as you can imagine.’
Ramzi is now anticipating being questioned by investigators in both Clayton County, Georgia where she first reported her son missing and Taos County, New Mexico where Ibn Wahhaj and the other adults in the camp are awaiting trial on charges including multiple counts of child abuse.
He said, ‘We are just waiting for investigators to approach her. They haven’t as yet but she expects to be contacted as they continue their investigations.
‘Right now her focus is just trying to get through this next stage, the identification of the remains found in the camp.
‘She’s having to come to terms with the prospect of what we all suspect will be confirmation of our worst fears.’