Imam here is linked to terror suspect

Washington- Cleveland Islamic leader Fawaz Damra has been linked to a Florida man who was indicted yesterday as the leader of an alleged terrorist group responsi ble for more than 100 deaths in the Middle East.

A 50-count federal indict ment accuses Sami Amin Al- Arian, 45, a University of South Florida engineering professor, and seven other al leged Palestin ian Islamic Ji had members of criminal racketeering, money laundering, conspiring to kill and maim people abroad, extortion, visa fraud, perjury and other charges. The defendants all face life in prison if they're convicted.

"We will bring justice to the full network of terror," Attorney General John Ashcroft said as he unveiled the charges.

stepping back in time...

TOWNHALL.com: "US CAN'T STOP FOR RAMADAN" by Linda Chavez (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Just two days before the Sept. 11 attack, a popular imam from the San Francisco Bay area, HamzaYusef, gave a speech in which he predicted that the United States "is facing a very terrible fate. And the reason for that is because this country stands condemned." A year earlier, another nationally renowned Muslim leader, Muzammil Siddiqi, warned, "American has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come." Yet neither of these statements kept the White House from inviting either man to meet with President Bush in a show of support for the American Muslim community in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

When asked why the two were invited, a White House staffer told the Washington Post: "To be honest, it's been difficult finding someone who is -- how should I put this? -- totally clean, or who qualifies as a through-and-through moderate."

But it's not just the White House that has been taken in. In Cleveland, the head of the local Islamic Center, Fawaz Damra, was exposed recently for having called on fellow Palestinians in Chicago to donate money to Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group, this despite being the model of interfaith cooperation in Cleveland. Damra is well-known for inviting Jews to celebrate the end of Ramadan at his Islamic Center, but he has also been videotaped in 1991 asking a group to donate money to kill Jews. " Who will give $500?" he asks on the tape, to kill "12 Jews," whom he calls "the sons of monkeys and pigs."

Although some members of the board of Damra's mosque wanted him to resign his position after the tape became public, Damra's critics ended up being the ones forced out. And this even after the board found out that Damra had been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.") (November 6, 2001)
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/lindachavez/lc20011106.shtml

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