A Story of Honesty, worth a read

DONALD MCKENZIE

MONTREAL (CP) - Take a Muslim cabbie from New York City, a Jewish businessman from Montreal and a forgotten suitcase containing valuable diamonds and precious stones and what do you get?

One honest taxi driver and one relieved jewelry dealer.

Thierry Bellisha, 32, and two colleagues had just finished lugging several suitcases out of Hossam Abdalla's taxi at LaGuardia Airport on Thursday morning when Bellisha realized one was missing.

The co-owner of Montreal-based Crown Ring immediately looked up but it was too late - Abdalla had already sped off, unaware he still had a suitcase worth several hundred thousand dollars in the trunk of his yellow cab.

"I screamed and I prayed to God like crazy," Bellisha, an Orthodox Jew, recalled in an interview Friday when asked his initial reaction. "I just asked God right away, 'Please help me now, I need your help right away.' "

As panic settled in - calls were even made to "important rabbis in Israel" for divine intervention - Bellisha and his partners returned to their hotel to review the establishment's videotapes to see if they could identify the taxi's number.

But the blinding sunshine from that morning obscured the numbers.

Several kilometres away, Abdalla, oblivious to his customer's anguish, happened to look in his trunk and saw what he called "a weird bag."

"When I opened it, I found the jewelry inside," Abdalla said in an interview from New York City on Friday. "It was mostly wedding bands, lots and lots of them.

"It was crazy. I've never been in a situation like that."

Abdalla, who will turn 30 later this month, then looked in his taxi and found one of Bellisha's business cards. The name matched the name on the suitcase, so after a call to Crown Ring in Montreal, Abdalla was soon talking to one very relieved businessman.

"There are not enough words to describe how he felt."

The two men eventually hooked up at LaGuardia on Thursday night for the switchover.

"It was an incredible gesture," Bellisha said. "It was very humanitarian.

"That cab driver is a perfect lesson for humanity all around the world."

The tale, which made the front page of Friday's New York Daily News, didn't leave Abdalla feeling like a hero and had him playing down the religious angle.

"Of course, I hope everyone would have done the same thing but this proves there's no such thing as Jewish or Muslim or whatever. We all pray to the same God.

"In a situation like that, you don't think 'What is he, Jewish Buddhist, Muslim?' He's just a human being working hard for his money."

Abdalla, who moved to the United States from Egypt in the late 1990s, said the greatest joy he got from the experience, aside from witnessing Bellisha's obvious relief, was hearing the pride and happiness in his father's voice when he called him back home to tell him what had happened.

Abdalla said Bellisha has promised him a reward.

On top of that, Abdalla will be getting the Montrealer's business whenever he's in the Big Apple from now on.

"Actually, he became my personal cab driver now in New York," Bellisha said. "I know I'm in good hands when I drive with him."

You can also read about it here http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/08/05/1161077-cp.html

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