Cleric says N.M. body his grandson’s

TAOS, N.M. — A severely disabled Georgia boy who authorities say was kidnapped by his father and marked for an exorcism was found buried at the ramshackle compound in the New Mexico desert that has been the focus of investigators for the past week, the boy’s grandfather said Thursday.

New Mexico authorities, however, said they had yet to identify the remains, discovered Monday.

The boy, Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, would have turned 4 on Monday. Prosecutors said he was snatched from his mother in December in Jonesboro, Ga., near Atlanta.

The search for him led authorities to New Mexico, where 11 hungry children and a youngster’s remains were found last week at a filthy compound shielded by old tires, wooden pallets and an earthen wall studded with broken glass.

The missing boy’s grandfather, Siraj Wahhaj, is a Muslim cleric who leads a well-known New York City mosque.

A Georgia arrest warrant accused the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, of kidnapping his child, who suffered from seizures and required constant attention because of a lack of oxygen and blood flow at birth.

The child’s father was among five adults arrested in the raid at the compound. In court papers, prosecutors also said Wahhaj had been training children there to carry out school shootings.

AP/MARY ALTAFFER New York cleric Siraj Wahhaj says Thursday that the remains of a child buried near a compound in New Mexico are those of his missing grandson.