Abdul Charara visited the grave of his wife, Mahassen Charara, on March 17, the anniversary of her death, and was shocked to discover that the cemetery had recently buried another Muslim man’s body in the plot next to hers. Shortly after his wife’s death in 1996 from an aneurysm, Charara purchased plots next to hers for the remainder of the family. 

This wasn’t the first time a body had been buried in that reserved plot. In 2011, Waad Charara, Mahassen and Abdul’s daughter, discovered that the cemetery had mistakenly buried a stranger’s body in that same plot.

Waad Charara told The Arab American News that she received a frantic phone call from her dad during his visit to the grave site last week. He told her that the cemetery had made the same mistake again. 

“My dad called me and said  ‘I have some bad news, they buried somebody else in the same grave,'” she said. “I literally almost dropped the phone and broke out into tears.”

United Memorial Gardens is a prominent cemetery used by many local Muslims in the community. The cemetery includes an Islamic Garden meant to maintain the procedures and protocols of Islamic burials. 

Shortly following the discovery, the Charara family contacted cemetery officials to inform them of this latest mistake. The man was buried in the wrong grave in February. His family was contacted and informed that they may have to exhume his body and relocate him to another area in the cemetery. The man’s family wishes to remain anonymous. 

Charara said the mix up has taken a toll on both of the families.

“What’s even harder is the other family,” Charara said. “Islamically putting someone in the grave and then taking them out, it’s just horrible. I just can’t imagine if someone else comes along and says ‘that’s our spot.’ But we’ve owned these plots for 19 years and now these people have to make that decision of moving their father. How horrible is that?”

According to documents obtained by The Arab American News, the cemetery had re-sold the plot to a family with a similar name to Abdul Charara in 2011. A man named Abdul Latif Charara was buried in the plot purchased by the first Charara family years before. After the mix-up, the cemetery had the man exhumed and moved to another location with the consent of his family.

Attorney Tarek Baydouny at Meridian Law Group, is representing the Charara family. He was also one of the attorneys representing the family during the first incident in 2011, when a lawsuit was filed at the Third District Court in Wayne County. 

Baydoun is calling for the community to take action on the cemetery’s continued negligence. He questioned whether the cemetery followed proper procedure and whether it is following the six step check point system in place to ensure that mistakes like this don’t occur. 

“We have to put an end to this,” Baydoun said. “The community has to come together, support both families and put an end to this recklessness. We never imagined we would see something like this happen again.” 

Baydoun said this week the cemetery reached out to him and indicated that it was interested in resolving the matter. Compensation for the Charara family is a possibility, but they will wait to see what proposal the cemetery has to ensure that this predicament never occurs again. 

“I made it very clear to the cemetery that my clients won’t settle on anything that doesn’t fully confirm that this will never happen again,” Baydoun said. “We are waiting right now for the cemetery’s response. They’ve indicated that they were going to make a proposal. I do hope the families at some point have a discussion between each other and come to a resolution.” 

The two families don’t appear to be the only ones caught in this predicament with the cemetery. In 2011, following the first incident, the Charara family launched a Facebook page called “Shame on United Memorial Gardens” to express their outrage towards the cemetery. During that period, other families came forward and claimed that the cemetery had made similar blunders with their reserved plots.

The Charara family continues to attest that Memorial Gardens has not given them answers as to how reserved plots can be overlooked by the cemetery. Waad Charara added that she was also dissatisfied with the current conditions of her mother’s grave. She noted that when the cemetery buried the man last month, they disturbed her mother’s grave.

 When they buried the man, they threw dirt on top of my mom’s grave,” she said. “They are not being responsible and they are not organized. I feel like they are dragging my family through the dirt.”