Free Republic

SNIP Shabbir ​Ahmed was delivering a sermon at a village in the east of Punjab province when he asked the gathering if anyone did not love the Prophet Mohammad. Mishearing the question, the 15-year old boy raised his hand. Ahmed quickly singled him out and called him a "blasphemer" in front of the congregation, Nosher Ali, the head of the local police station, told Reuters on Sunday. After returning home, the boy cut his hand off, an act welcomed by the boy's father who told police he was proud of his son and did not want the cleric arrested. SNIP

Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s. The trial of Hamid Hayat, 23, is not taking place in the dark of night nor in a military tribunal from which the media is barred. It is in an open California courtroom, the very kind that has been overrun for trials of the likes of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson. Yet in the month of February, the New York Times had exactly...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Pakistani cleric facing deportation was accused Friday during an immigration hearing of trying to incite followers to defend Osama bin Laden and kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, seeking bail on a charge of overstaying his visa to head a Lodi mosque in the Central Valley, denied that he had made any speech against the United States. During the same hearing, a government attorney said another Lodi imam being held on immigration charges once had close ties to the Taliban. Justice Department attorney Paul Nishiie argued against releasing Ahmed on bail, saying he was linked to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that the former imam of the Lodi mosque who was arrested in June on immigration violations has been removed from the United States and returned to Pakistan. ICE officials say the removal of Shabbir Ahmed, 38, was completed overnight with his arrival in Pakistan on board a commercial flight escorted by ICE officers. The cleric’s deportation follows an August 15 immigration hearing where he advised Immigration Judge Anthony Murry that he was abandoning his legal fight to remain in the United States and would accept an order of removal...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The second of two Islamic leaders accused by the government of plotting to set up a terror training camp in California has been deported to Pakistan, his attorney said Thursday. Shabbir Ahmed was deported Wednesday night after dropping his opposition to a charge that he overstayed his religious visa while heading a mosque in Lodi, attorney Saad Ahmad said. Ahmed and four other men from the mosque were arrested in June after federal authorities infiltrated the Pakistani community in Lodi and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years. Muhammad Adil Khan, another religious leader from Lodi...

SAN FRANCISCO - A cleric facing immigration charges agreed Monday to be deported to Pakistan, a week after being accused of plotting to open a terrorism camp in California to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, will be deported on charges unrelated to terrorism: that he overstayed his religious-work visa while heading a mosque in Lodi, an agricultural town of 62,000 about 30 miles south of Sacramento. Ahmed was one of five men from the mosque who were arrested in June, none of whom have been charged with crimes of terrorism. Ahmed's decision not to contest the immigration...

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors laid out their case against a Muslim cleric from Pakistan on Wednesday, alleging that he was involved in a northern California terror network with links to terror leader Usama bin Laden (search) and that his group was planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed (search), 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi, a town of 62,000 about 30 miles south of Sacramento. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that Lodi Islamic leader Shabbir Ahmed was part of a long-term effort to build a Lodi Muslim school to train future jihadists who could commit acts of terrorism in the United States. FBI Special Agent Gary Schaaf testified that Ahmed was involved in a "long-term plan" to set up an Islamic school in Lodi whose students would be "ready to commit acts of violence." Schaaf said that school -- the proposed Farooqia Center in southwest Lodi -- would be patterned after the Islamic university in Pakistan called Jamia Farooqia, which was listed by...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A judge refused to set bail Tuesday for a Muslim cleric from Pakistan who faces deportation and has been accused of planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do I believe he is planning a terror attack?" FBI agent Gary Schaaf said. "That's some of the information that has been provided to us." He testified that Ahmed and...

A Muslim cleric from Lodi, one of five members of the Pakistani community in the San Joaquin County city arrested by federal authorities this month, told an immigration judge Friday that he made anti-American speeches to crowds in Pakistan in the first months of the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. A bail hearing in San Francisco for Shabbir Ahmed, facing deportation for allegedly overstaying his visa, provided a forum for the government to counter his supporters' claims that Ahmed is a peaceful clergyman victimized by anti- Islamic hysteria.

Federal officials believe they have broken up an al Qaeda terror cell operating in Lodi and have arrested two men and detained two others as part of a wide-ranging investigation, authorities said Tuesday. One of the men arrested, 22-year-old Hamid Hayat, is accused in a federal criminal complaint of training in an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan to learn “how to kill Americans” and then lying to FBI agents about it. His training included explosives and weapons instruction and using photographs of President Bush as targets, court documents indicate. More:http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/v-print/story/13022958p-13869232c.html