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New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Soldier's gun death a shocker
By TAMER EL-GHOBASHY and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, May 20th, 2003
The family of a Brooklyn soldier demanded answers yesterday after the Army said the man was killed in a bizarre gun-cleaning accident in Iraq. Relatives of Spec. Rasheed Sahib, 22, said they do not fully accept the official account that he was killed when another soldier's gun discharged accidentally Sunday. "Don't you have to take out the bullets to clean a gun?" asked Sahib's stepfather, Seenarine Jonathan, 47. "I don't understand it. I can't buy it." The Army refused to identify the soldier who accidentally shot Sahib, who had been with the 4th Infantry Division for three years. A statement said the incident near the town of Balad was under investigation. "We're very confused," said Omar Permaul, 25, Sahib's best friend. "We want a full investigation." As questions swirled around Sahib's death, a large group of relatives, neighbors and friends mourned at his mother's home in Bushwick. They called him a patriotic immigrant who came to Brooklyn with his family from Guyana 15 years ago. He graduated from Franklin K. Lane High School, made dozens of friends in his neighborhood and spent long hours souping up his beloved 1994 Honda Civic. Sahib hoped to become an FBI agent and supported the war to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - but he worried about going to fight in the desert. "He was sad when he left," said his sister Nafeeza, 19. "He believed in what he was doing, but he didn't want to leave us." His grieving mother, Fizoon Ashraf, dissolved in tears when she tried to talk about her son. Sahib had not called home since he shipped out to Iraq on April 1.

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