Free Republic

The self-proclaimed leading moneyman behind the Ground Zero mosque ran a $5.1 million insurance scam that cashed in on car-accident injuries, a lawsuit alleges. Hisham Elzanaty, 52, ran the "highly developed and sophisticated kickback scheme" for years, Allstate Insurance claims in a federal suit on Long Island. The scheme routinely submitted inflated medical bills to Allstate and involved illegal fee-splitting, court papers say.

A key financial backer of the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero once contributed to a U.S.-designated terror group, MyFox New York reports. Egyptian-born businessman Hisham Elzanaty, who made what is described as a "significant investment" in the Ground Zero mosque project,contributed more than $6,000 in 1999 to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, also known as HLF, tax records show. The donations came two years before the federal government shut down HLF and designated it a terror group. Elzanaty's attorney told MyFox New York that his client believed at the time that he was donating to an...

So now it transpires that a key money- man behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque is a one-time supporter of a group shut down by the feds because it was a front for Hamas. No wonder the mosque's principal imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, refuses to discuss the project's finances. Or, for that matter, refuses to speak harshly of Hamas -- an Iranian cat's-paw that's long been one of the deadliest Islamist terrorist organizations operating in the Mideast. It was reported last night that Hisham Elzanaty -- an Egyptian-born businessman from Long Island -- provided a big chunk of the $4.8...