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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2237914/posts
Some Minnesota Somalis subpoenaed to testify before grand jury
KARE11.com ^ | 4/25/09 | AP
Posted on April 25, 2009 7:14:34 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Some local Somalis have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury as authorities continue to investigate whether some young Somali-American men were radicalized here and recruited to fight with terror groups in their homeland.
Federal authorities won’t confirm the grand jury investigation but the subpoenas — as well as questions by FBI agents and customs officials — have unnerved some in the community. Local Somalis have felt vulnerable since officials began looking into why these young men left, and why one carried out a suicide bombing in Somalia last fall.
Omar Hurre, director of Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, the largest mosque in Minnesota, said about 20 young Somalis have come to him in the last few months, asking for advice about grand jury subpoenas.
“Most of them just come to me and say, ‘Hey, I got this. What should I do?”’ he said. “Some of them are even crying when they come to me and confused and scared because they think when they get a visit from any law enforcement agency ... that maybe they did something wrong.”
(Excerpt) Read more at kare11.com ...
Thanks to But Three Lefts Do for the ping to this thread.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2239973/posts
Somali Leader Stunned To Learn He’s On No-Fly List (MN)
WCCO.com ^ | 4/28/09 | Sonya Goins
Posted on April 28, 2009 5:29:44 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Since last summer, dozens of young Somali men have disappeared from the Twin Cities.
And the FBI has focused its attention on the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in Minneapolis. Two of the leaders at that Mosque were put on the so-called no-fly list.
One of them is a volunteer youth coordinator named Abdulahi Farah, but he says he’s done nothing wrong.
“It was a very bad experience,” said Abdulahi Farah. He has been the youth coordinator volunteer at Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic center for two years.
He’s also a Somali outreach worker for the Richfield school district. Last fall he was told he couldn’t board a plane.
“He just said, ‘Ya know, you’re on the no-fly list and you just can’t go on the plane.’ I said why? He didn’t know — he said ‘Google it,’” said Farah. “I felt like I was found guilty before innocent — and you would say this is not America.”
Farah was planning on going to the Hajj with his new wife. The pilgrimage to Mecca is a big deal.
It’s a requirement that Muslims do this at least once in their lives.
“It didn’t come into mind once that we would be stopped from going to Hajj,” said Farah. “You wouldn’t think that something like that would happen in America where someone who has not done a crime, someone who serves their community, someone who always tries to be positive and tries to add something positive to the community.”
The FBI’s had its eye on the Mosque because a former member blew himself up in Somalia last fall.
Investigators want to know if Mosque leaders persuaded young men like him to go fight overseas.
“The only thing that I know I’ve done is reach out to some at risk youth and try to teach them the right way and so forth,” Farah said.
WCCO-TV called the Transportation Security Administration and a spokesperson told us the no-fly list is classified, so she couldn’t say if Farah was on the list or not.