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The Department of Justice confirms it has launched an investigation into the killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah, but says it is “routine” and connected with the receipt of the FBI’s own internal investigation, the contents of which are not public, and not the result of any pressure from Rep. John Conyers or the public.
Also, the Imam’s wife, who is from Tanzania, claims that the government is seeking to deport her from the United States.
According to Rep. John Conyers, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S.Justice Department has opened an investigation into the FBI killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah.
Detroit — The civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation of the Oct. 28 FBI shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, U.S. Rep. John Conyers said at a news conference today.
Joined this morning by a coalition of civil rights groups who, along with Conyers, has been calling for an investigation, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said he received confirmation of the investigation from Washington late Monday and again today.
A call to the civil rights division of the Justice Department was not immediately returned this morning.
The autopsy done on Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah was released today. You can read it in full here. (pdf)
Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad, at whose request the autopsy had been withheld until today (it was complete in November) held a press conference today at which he apparently said nothing except that the investigation will be continuing for a number of weeks. Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee has already previously written to the Justice Department requesting an independent federal investigation of the killing.
The autopsy confirmed that Imam Luqman sustained 21 gunshot wounds…
The autopsy found Abdullah was hit twice in the chest, four times in the abdomen, twice in the groin, four times in the left hip and side, seven times in the left thigh, once in the scrotum and once in the back.
“At some point his back was turned,” Schmidt said. “Whether that means someone meant to shoot him in the back or not, I couldn’t say. He must have been slightly turned to the left (at the time of the shooting).”
Schmidt said his investigation could not determine whether Abdullah was shot while lying down.
The county’s medical examiners routinely testify in other cases that they use police reports about circumstances and investigator’s observations in helping them arrive at their conclusions. But Schmidt said today his office received no information from law enforcement sources to aid in the autopsy’s findings.
The autopsy also noted abrasions to the hands and face of Imam Luqman, although there was no speculation as to the source of those injuries. The medical examiner said he received no information from law enforcement in coming to his findings, and that it was not part of his examination to do any tests to see if Imam Luqman had fired a weapon.
3 months after he was killed, the autopsy of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah is scheduled to finally be released on Monday. The autopsy has been complete since December, but was withheld from the public at the request of the Dearborn Police.
Dawud Walid is quoting a Detroit reporter on his blog (who is quoting a confidential source) indicating that the autopsy will confirm what has long been rumored: that the Imam was shot 21 times, including in the back, and that he was handcuffed.
The Detroit Free Press reports on a forum that took place Thursday where the special agent in charge of the FBI office defended the actions of the FBI in the case, although from the story it seems like he defended it with platitudes (“We did what we had to do”) rather than explaining what happened.
The FBI broke the law routinely between 2002 – 2006 by illegally accessing phone records without a warrant.
Refusal to release imam’s autopsy raises suspicions.
The Wayne County medical examiner’s refusal to release its autopsy report on Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah is fueling concerns in the Muslim community about a possible cover-up of facts surrounding his death, a community leader said Monday.
….The county Medical Examiner’s Office denied a Nov. 2 request The Detroit News filed for Abdullah’s medical examiner report, saying it was not complete.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Michigan, said the county office has not responded to a request from his organization requesting a copy of the report once it is completed. The office also quoted exorbitant fees for copies of autopsy photos, he said.
Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the county, confirmed Monday that the report is completed but is being withheld at the request of Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad, who does not want the report released until his department completes its investigation. The county will seek more information from Haddad about how the release of the report would hamper his investigation, Niemiec said.
They can stall, but eventually that autopsy report will be released to the public. There is too much attention and pressure about this case for them not to…
As U.S. officials consider whether to file criminal charges against the men and how aggressively to prosecute any potential case, some Muslim leaders are calling for leniency, saying the tough approach often used by the Bush administration would alienate a community whose relationship with law enforcement is uneasy.
“Charging them and throwing them in jail is not the solution,” said Nihad Awad, national head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which approached the FBI on behalf of the families. “The government has to show some appreciation for the actions of the parents and the community. That will encourage other families to come forward.”
Yes. Agreed. One way or another these men are going to be under the control of the criminal justice system for a long time. Why not seek a short sentence and then put them on supervised probation with an electronic monitor ankle bracelet. If they leave the prescribed area an alarm goes off at the police station/FBI office.
Of course, they could get unlucky and draw an obstinate right-wing Bush-appointee judge who might ignore any agreement with defense attorneys and try to throw them in jail for a million years anyway, so there is quite a bit of inshallah involved…
…those relations have reached a low point in recent months, many Muslim leaders say. Several high-profile cases in which informers have infiltrated mosques and helped promote plots, they say, have sown a corrosive fear among their people that F.B.I. informers are everywhere, listening.
“There is a sense that law enforcement is viewing our communities not as partners but as objects of suspicion,” said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, who represented Muslims at the national prayer service a day after President Obama’s inauguration. “A lot of people are really, really alarmed about this.”
The very right-wing Washington Times is reporting that FBI sources are telling them that Nidal Malik Hasan was in contact with other people identified as Islamic extremists besides al-Awlaki, who are located in both the US and overseas.
Maj. Hasan made some of the contacts while visiting known jihadist chat rooms on the Internet, according to one of The Times’ sources, a senior FBI official. He said that several people with whom Maj. Hasan was in contact had been the focus of investigations by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force.
….Both officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said some of the names of those with whom Maj. Hasan was in contact will likely be released soon.
The FBI official said that could happen during pending congressional hearings into the massacre.
A military intelligence official adds:
“Those connections, except for Awlaki, could be explained innocently. But all of them together form a very concerning picture.”
“I may run into contact with shady people through coincidence, through social events, etc.,” he said. “But at some point you start saying like, ‘Huh? Why are you coming in contact with all these charming people?’ “
Sometimes the Washington Times does journalism, so this is worth noting.
The case involving a local Muslim leader killed in a Yermo house fire still hasn’t produced any suspects and investigators are now shelving the case, according to officials from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
“We’ve pretty much exhausted all of our leads,” said sheriff’s spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire.
Ali Mohammed, 51, died on June 27 while he was out visiting the Yermo property his family had recently moved out of when the building went up in flames.
Investigators from the bomb and arson unit have confirmed that the fire was human-caused and not a result of faulty equipment, Wiltshire said. At the time, several neighbors confirmed hearing a loud explosion ring out before seeing the house on fire.
But they have not been able to determine who started the fire, she said.
Though the fire left only charred remains, photographs that Mohammed had taken two days before his death showed vandalism had taken place inside the vacated house. Spray-painted Nazi swastikas and racial epithets that singled out the family’s Middle Eastern heritage covered the interior walls. The family gave the digital photographs to investigators as part of the evidence.
Green Party of Michigan condemns FBI Raid and Murder of Imam Luqman Abdullah.
The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) offers its condolences to the family of respected community and religious leader, Imam Luqman A. Abdullah.
The Green Party of Michigan is joining the call from Imam Abdullah’s family and others for an independent investigation into an FBI raid in Dearborn, MI on Oct. 28 that resulted in Imam Abdullah being shot 18 times and left to die.
“We condemn this FBI raid and murder of an innocent man,” Green Party of Michigan Chair Fred Vatale said. “The FBI fails even today to bring charges of terrorism against the other people arrested. Rather it and the corporate media make wild accusations; their only witnesses unreliable former criminal informants, dependent on the FBI for food and freedom. It appears that the only charges are those associated with petty crime, and even these were instigated by government agents and grinding poverty.”
“We are having a hard time believing the FBI claims that this was simply an arrest gone wrong. We are deeply concerned by reports that Imam Abdulluh was left to die from his wounds while an injured police dog was airlifted for medical treatment. Such behavior demonstrates an intent to kill rather than enforce the law,” said Derek Grigsby, Detroit Green Party Co-chair. “Given the historical and current antipathy of the FBI towards people of African descent and Muslims, we are left to wonder if the death of Imam Abdullah was not exactly what was intended for that day.”
American Muslim Blogger (and attorney and activist) Junaid Afeef asks some of the questions about the killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah and urges Muslim organizations to push for an independent investigation.
Did the FBI special agents in Detroit, Michigan really shoot Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah last week because he shot a dog?
Did they unleash a dog to subdue Abdullah because he would not get down on the ground as had the other targets of the arrest warrant?
Did the FBI special agents shoot Abdullah 18 times?
Did the FBI special agents handcuff Abdullah after he had been shot 18 times?
Did the FBI special agents airlift the FBI dog for immediate medical care while Abdullah lay handcuffed and bleeding with 18 bullet wounds?
And is it true that Abdullah did not shoot at FBI agents but only at the dog that was unleashed upon Abdullah?
Is it true that, prior to two years ago (prior to the confidential informants being planted), Abdullah and his followers were not planning crimes?
Is it true that the FBI headquarters in Detroit are very close in proximity to Abdullah’s mosque and that the FBI has no evidence of any planned attacks on the facility and or a member of the agency?
With regard to the alleged plot to attack the super bowl a few years ago (as reported by the newspapers), is it true that Abdullah is recorded or reported as having said that he did not want to attack and or harm innocent people?
Is the location of the shooting being preserved so that evidence of the shots fired from Abdullah firearm can be analyzed vis-a-vis his location and the location of the special agents on the operation in order to assess (probably rather than precisely – since only Abdullah could have told us what his intent was) what he was aiming at and attempting to shoot?
What is the FBI’s policy on use of deadly force and for shooting to kill?
These are the kinds of questions people are asking, and these are the kinds of questions that need to be answered in order to address allegations that the shooting of Abdullah was unlawful.
400,000 on FBI watch list – 1,600 new names nominated every day…
Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation’s terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.
During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a “reasonable suspicion,” according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.
FBI officials cautioned that each nomination “does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person.”
The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government’s “no fly” list.
In a report about the shooting of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a Detroit newspaper reports that a police dog was also slain in the attempt to arrest Abdullah.
That provokes the question of under what circumstance was the dog killed? If the dog had been sent to attack Abdullah and he defended himself, that presents Abdullah’s killing in a very alarming and provocative new light.
A second-day story from the Associated Press has a lot more inflammatory reporting about Luqman Ameen Abdullah than the one Mirelle objected to yesterday.
The 43-page complaint described Abdullah as an extremist who believed the FBI bombed New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 and the Oklahoma City federal building two years later. Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.
….Abdullah told followers that it was their “duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die” and to “simply shoot a cop in the head” if they wanted the officer’s bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.
The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah’s regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were “willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence,” the FBI agent wrote.
This affidavit from the FBI reminds me of a documentary I saw years ago about the raid on David Koresh’s compound in Waco, Texas (the raid that ended in the death of most of the members of the group and was the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing).
In that case, the affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) stating the reasons for a judge to approve the raid was about two-thirds about suspected child abuse involving adult men marrying teenage girls, and the press cited the accusations in dubbing Koresh “The Sinful Messiah.” The ATF however has no jurisdiction over child abuse. The implication of the documentary was that the child abuse allegations were included to demonize Koresh and his followers in the public eye and legitimize extreme government violence against the group.
The spiritual leader of Stockton’s largest mosque and his brother, the former spiritual leader, have been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple tax fraud charges in what apparently began as an anti-terrorism investigation.
Saeed Ur Rahman, 44, faces three counts of tax evasion for allegedly understating his income by a quarter-million dollars during the tax years 2004-2006. Rahman is the imam of the Islamic Center of Stockton.
In a separate indictment, Rahman’s brother Obed Ur Rahman, 57, is charged with tax fraud in what prosecutors described as an elaborate scheme to avoid paying capital gains tax on a Stockton duplex he sold in 2004. Two other men are charged in connection with the duplex transaction, including Obed Ur Rahman’s investment partner.
Obed Ur Rahman faces an additional charge of accepting more than $60,000 in disability payments from the Social Security Administration when, in fact, he was working.
….“My client tells me he’s known they’ve been under investigation for two years,” said Bruce Locke, who represents Mohammad Nasir Khan. “Evidently all the FBI could find was a possible tax problem.”
Obed Ur Rahman faces up to 28 years in federal prison if convicted. Saeed Ur Rahman faces up to five years.
Mohammad Nasir Khan faces eight years in prison and Shaker Ahmed faces a sentence of up to five years for their alleged role in the duplex transaction.
The FBI has a long history dating back to Al Capone of using tax laws to send people it doesn’t like to prison, but who it can’t arrest for actual crimes.
A hardline Israeli newspaper is reporting on a US raid on a “Muslim meatpacking plant” near Chicago. No other media outlets that provide copy to the wire services are reporting on it apparently.
Approximately 100 armed federal agents, backed by a helicopter, 50 vehicles and sharpshooters, raided a Muslim meatpacking plant earlier this week but remain silent about the secret operation. Only half a dozen people work at the plant.
No one was arrested, but one eyewitness said the huge police force indicates that the raid may involve criminal activity other than hiring illegal immigrants. Terror-related activity has not been ruled, but officials have refused all comment on the case.
Chicago news sources said the plant’s owner, a resident of Chicago, was arrested at his home and that documents were seized from the plant.
….The Muslim meatpacking plant is operated by First World Management in Kinsman, Illinois, where government workers involved in the raid did not explain why Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents joined immigration officers in the raid.
Several officers pulled their gun as agents surrounded an unidentified man in Middle Eastern garb. The plant processes and packs goat meat according to Muslim laws. A Muslim prayer room in the plant also was raided.
I find it interesting that an Israel newspaper that calls itself “The voice of the settlers” is doing original reporting on domestic events in the US.
FBI tries to deport imam for refusing to be an informant.
“We want you to work with us,” Farahi remembers the FBI agents telling him.
And this is when the imam’s five-year battle with the federal government began.
“I have no problem working with you guys or helping you out,” Farahi said. He could keep them informed about the local Muslim community or translate Arabic. But the relationship, he insisted, would need to be public; others would have to know he was helping the government.
But that wasn’t what the FBI had in mind, Farahi says. The agents wanted him to become a secret informant who would investigate specific people. And they knew Farahi was in a vulnerable position. His student visa had expired, and he had asked the government for a renewal. He had also applied for political asylum, hoping one of those legal tracks would offer a way for him to stay in the United States indefinitely.
….The slender, bearded 34-year-old Farahi frowns as he recalls all of this while sitting on a white folding chair in the Shamsuddin Islamic Center on a recent afternoon. “People trust you as a religious figure, and you’re trying to kind of deceive them,” he says, remembering the choice he faced. “That’s where the problem is.”
Farahi soon discovered the FBI’s offer wasn’t optional. The federal government used strong-arm tactics — including trying to have him deported and falsely claiming it had information linking him to terrorism — in an effort to force him to become an informant, he says.
FBI: Teen thought Dallas terror video would go to bin Laden.
The Jordanian teenager accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper created a seven-minute video that he believed would be given to 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, an FBI special agent testified during a probable cause hearing Monday.
Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, is being held on a charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in connection with a planned Sept. 24 terror strike on the 60-story Fountain Place.
….Petrowski also told Assistant U.S. Attorney Dayle Elieson that Smadi was in a hotel room with an undercover FBI employee when he made the video, which he believed would be delivered to bin Laden. The agent did not discuss the contents of the video, but said the FBI had recorded the encounter.
Investigation of Najibullah Zazi based on a tip gleaned from CIA operations in Pakistan.
The fact that intelligence officials learned of Zazi through a CIA source sheds more light on the government’s claim that the charges against Zazi are part of a broader, international case and begins to explain why the investigation triggered such a large offensive from the nation’s intelligence community.
It also shows the case stems from the CIA’s counterterrorism efforts to track al-Qaida and not an investigation initiated in this country by someone’s suspicious actions, like most other domestic terrorism cases handled by the FBI.
An article in the Washington Post this morning says that recent terrorist probes in the US may be ‘testing’ the FBI’s relationship with the US Muslim community.
Investigators seeking to uncover terrorist plots for years have walked a fine line between keeping tabs on the Muslim community and alienating the same people who could serve as an early warning signal.
The Post also engaged in a little ‘news of the day’ hyperbole when it called the Najibullah Zazi case “one of the most worrisome terrorism investigations in decades.”
The last two decades would include 9/11, the anthrax attacks that followed it, the first attack on the WTC, the arrest of the Unibomber, and the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building there. I don’t think Zazi’s alleged hydrogen peroxide bombs rise to the level of any of that.
A few bad news items this morning. I’ll post as a roundup:
• Fox News reports that for the first time, a top US law enforcement official, FBI Director Robert Mueller, has stated on record that al Shabaab may be interested in attacks outside Somalia, including possible operations inside the United States.
• Suicide bomber kills five at UN food agency in Pakistan. Thabet already posted this below, but in the same article, a report that the US is considering a strategy that includes sending special forces on ground operations inside Pakistan for the first time (I haven’t heard this before).
American officials have said they are considering a strategy of intensified drone attacks combined with the deployment of special operations forces against al-Qaida and Taliban targets on the Pakistani side of the border — part of an alternative to sending more troops to Afghanistan in what is an increasingly unpopular war.
• A ludicrous article out of Australia has a headline that warns about ‘terrorist tweeting.’ The article itself is a rehash of concerns about violent extremists using technology to advance their interests.
Terrorist leaders were using videos that were reported by news channels and validated by CIA statements to conduct what he called ”virtual state visits”, Mr Mirchandani said.
Ooh – ”virtual state visits” – whatever.
Muslim Advocates sent out today the following:
Muslim Lawyers Issue Urgent Community Advisory
**PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR MOSQUES, FAMILY AND FRIENDS**American Muslims are committed to preserving the safety and security of our country and support the full and fair investigation and prosecution of those who would seek to bring us harm. However, Muslim Advocates, the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML) and local Muslim bar associations across the country strongly urge individuals not to speak with law enforcement officials without the presence or advice of an attorney. Despite the characterization that contact with law enforcement is voluntary and discretionary, information provided — or omitted — during any such interview can become the basis for further investigation or prosecution and have immigration implications.
We highly recommend that attorneys and community leaders share a short, 15-min. “know your rights” video, produced by lawyers with Muslim Advocates, with their mosques, family and friends. The video provides crucial information about how to handle contact from law enforcement officials. The video is available in five languages – Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Somali and English. Click here to view the video online.
Key tips to keep in mind:
There is no legal obligation to speak to law enforcement officials. You are only required to provide identification to law enforcement officials if asked and immigrants are required to carry proof of immigration status at all times. Declining to speak cannot be presumed as guilt.Any statements made during an interview can be used against you at a later time. Lying to a federal officer, even by omission, is a crime.
If approached by the FBI or law enforcement, ask for their business cards and say that your lawyer will contact them.
For more information, or for assistance locating an attorney in your area, please visit http://www.muslimadvocates.org or contact Nura Maznavi. (nura@muslimadvocates.org) 415-692-1484.
FBI pays wrongly detained Egyptian man $250,000.
The FBI paid $250,000 this week to an Egyptian man detained when a pilot’s aviation radio was found after the Sept. 11 attacks in his hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center, his lawyer said Thursday.
A judge approved the payment to Abdallah Higazy in July and the money was delivered this week, according to the lawyer, Jonathan S. Abady.
Higazy, 38, had sued the FBI, saying an FBI agent screamed at him, lied to him and threatened to endanger his family, leading him to offer several ways the radio got in his room and causing him to be unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.
Terror probe highlights police-Muslim tensions.
The arrest of a Queens imam who investigators had considered a trusted partner was a blow in more ways than one for law enforcement.
….Officers visit mosques, attend national Muslim conventions and very publicly celebrate Muslim holidays. Earlier this month, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly led the annual NYPD Ramadan program for clerics and others at One Police Plaza.
Yet, in many cases, aggressive outreach hasn’t been enough to overcome deep Muslim mistrust of authorities — fears that have been exacerbated in cases in which law enforcement has placed informants inside mosques to build a case. Muslims widely fear that the innocent will be caught up in the net police have set for terrorists, and some struggle with just how forthcoming they should be.
And this:
There is also a persistent belief among some Muslims that no one of their faith could have carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings. Muslims who hold this view believe there is no threat of extremism in their community and therefore no need to work with law enforcement.
Several national Muslim groups have tried to counter this attitude. As just one example, the Muslim Public Affairs Council created a “National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism,” several years ago aimed largely at mosque leaders. Still, in a 2007 Pew Research Center survey, 60 percent of Muslim Americans said they did not believe that Arabs were behind the attacks.
Rifqa Bary and “The strange case of the philandering, Muslim-threat-hyping FBI agent.”
The very next blog I visited after my previous post has the title above. Amazing.
One of the ways sleazebag John Guandolo has been “playing up the threat of Islamic terrorism” is by injecting himself into the Rifqa Bary saga, writes Kyle at Right Wing Watch.
Last week he penned a piece entitled “Florida Department of Law Enforcement earns an F” for the Center for Security Policy website, claiming that, in his “professional opinion,” the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s investigation stating that there was no evidence to support the right-wing allegations against Bary’s parents was false, due to “negligence– and willful blindness” on the part of Florida authorities.
Guandolo’s “expert opinion” is being cited by right-wing Christian groups like the Family Research Council (“a veteran FBI investigator”) and Coral Ridge Ministries anti-Islam activist Robert Knight (“FBI veteran”) when they denounce Islam and Rifqa Bary’s family.
Interestingly, both the Family Research Council and Knight ‘free associate’ their discussions of Rifqa Bary with the “Jummah on the Hill” Muslim prayer gathering this Friday.
The strange case of the philandering, Muslim-threat-hyping FBI agent.
An FBI agent who worked on the corruption case of former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson resigned after superiors found a list he wrote of his sexual conquests with agents and a confidential source, according to court documents.
The same agent, John Guandolo, who is married and who unsuccessfully solicited a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy witness in the Jefferson case with whom he was having an affair, resigned from the FBI and appears to have landed on his feet on the speaking circuit playing up the threat of Islamic terrorism.
The confidential source was a former tech executive named Lori Modi:
Mody also told the FBI that Guandolo approached her with information about five “anti-terrorism organizations,” including one affiliated with “a person named Emerson,” and wanted her to make a $75,000 donation to one of them. She declined.
That would be Smearcasting standout Steven Emerson. TPM writes, “Perhaps it’s not a surprising that Guandolo has emerged issuing what can charitably be described as overheated warnings about Islamic extremism,” and then quotes a Tennessee newspaper describing comments Guandolo made to it:
Every major Muslim organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the former FBI agent said, which he said was formed to overthrow America and establish Islamic law.
“They’re having great success of implementing Shariah law, I could give you a thousand examples,” Guandolo said.
Relevant to a topic that John has posted about and we have discussed previously here on TalkIslam,
Muslim Matters posts a series of videos under the title “Why You Should Never Talk to Law Enforcement Without an Attorney”
Close readers of Talk Islam would be unsurprised to hear that three Afghan Asians have been arrested for making false statement to the FBI in a terror probe. I posted this recommendation from the Asian law caucus last month:
Federal Criminal Code 1001 makes it a crime to lie to an FBI agent, and that code is now being used to recklessly incarcerate people, said Dubal. “We tell people its better not to talk to an FBI agent, because if you do and you misrepresent yourself, you could be subject to criminal penalty.”
In a comment in the previous post, Talk Islam contributor Abu Noor, an attorney in Chicago, says that’s his advice too.
However, it sounds like the central target of the probe, Najibullah Zazi, lied pretty substantially to the FBI so I can’t say I’m sympathetic. The other two sound like well-intentioned family and friends of Zazi who are now facing eight years in prison, which seems like a punishment that goes far beyond the ‘crime.’ Here’s the description:
An arrest warrant affidavit says FBI agents intercepted a phone conversation around Sept. 11 in which Afzali told the younger Zazi that he had spoken with authorities. “I was exposed to something yesterday from the authorities. And they came to ask me about your characters. They asked me about you guys,” Afzali told Zazi, according to the affidavit.
However Afzali allegedly lied to authorities about that conversation when federal agents asked him about it Thursday, according to the affidavit.
The department says Mohammed Zazi, who was interviewed last week by the FBI, lied when asked if he knew anyone by the name of Afzali and said he didn’t. The FBI said it had wiretapped a conversation between Mohammed Zazi and Afzali during Najibullah Zazi’s visit to New York.
Advice on interacting with the FBI from the Asian Law Caucus.
Federal Criminal Code 1001 makes it a crime to lie to an FBI agent, and that code is now being used to recklessly incarcerate people, said Dubal. “We tell people its better not to talk to an FBI agent, because if you do and you misrepresent yourself, you could be subject to criminal penalty.”
(via CAIR)