Lawsuit's claim: CAIR no longer even exists

Nihad Awad, director of CAIR, being served a subpoena

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, a pro-Muslim lobby named as an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terror-funding cases ever brought by the U.S. government, continues to operate even though it no longer exists as a corporate entity, according to a lawyer suing the organization.

As WND reported last night, CAIR officials were surprised at their 14th annual banquet in Washington when lawyer David Yerushalmi arranged for them publicly to be served with legal notice of a new lawsuit over a staff member accused of representing himself as a lawyer and improperly taking clients' money.

Yerushalmi represents four plaintiffs, two of whom are African-American Muslims, in the case that claims CAIR internal documents reveal hundreds of people were victimized in the fraud scheme.

Yerushalmi discussed the developments today with WND founder and editor Joseph Farah, who was at the microphone in G. Gordon Liddy's absence on Liddy's regular radio program.

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"We have CAIR documents which demonstrate there are at least 30 other victim-clients who paid money and were victimized by CAIR," Yerushalmi said, "And hundreds of other victims who don't even know they were victims."

The lawyer suggested allegations of that kind could spell the beginning of the end for CAIR's operations.

"If we have our way it certainly is," Yerushalmi told Farah. He said organizations that are proven to have a record of criminal activities should not exist.

Then came the suggestion of further defiance of the law by CAIR.

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"The organization is no longer a valid corporation," Yerushalmi revealed on the program. "The District of Columbia delisted it on Sept. 8, 2008."

He said the organization failed to file its paperwork to continue to exist.

"They are not allowed to be operating, according to the law," he said.

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A spokesman for CAIR, contacted by WND for a comment, said, "Thank you and have a nice day," and hung up on the reporter.

The man who served CAIR the legal summons and complaint was Dave Gaubatz, a private researcher who  investigated the group for its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and global jihad.

He described for WND what happened at CAIR's banquet:

JihadWatch.org director Robert Spencer, a longtime critic of CAIR, said the lawsuit "is an extraordinarily significant action."

"For years CAIR has used
litigation as a weapon to silence and intimidate both its critics and anyone who has advocated measures to protect Americans against jihad terror. But the convictions of various of its former officials on jihad terror-related charges, as well as Islamic supremacist statements that have come to light from some of its spokesmen, have long suggested that CAIR is quite different from what all too many in the government and the mainstream media take it to be," Spencer told WND.

"This suit
further suggests that they have not hesitated to use the same tactics
they've used with non-Muslims against their fellow Muslims, and is an
important step in exposing this unsavory organization for what it
really is," he said.

Another video for WND shows the delivery of the documents:

On Spencer's comment page, the participants were awestruck by the legal move.

"This basically discredits all their leadership," wrote one person.

"It's about time that they are unmasked, and this suit directly strikes at their cover operation as a 'civil rights organization,'" said another.

"Give them enough rope … wonderful," said a third.

Gaubatz personally served CAIR Director Nihad Awad at the banquet while Democratic North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw, a CAIR national board member, was addressing the festivities.

The federal civil complaint alleges criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, a self-described public interest civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also names CAIR's national leadership as individual defendants.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Morris Days, the "resident attorney" and "manager for civil rights" at the now defunct CAIR MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Va., was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who had paid for CAIR legal services.

CAIR is accused of purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations and the media. When CAIR got irate calls from clients about Days' failure to provide competent legal services, CAIR is charged with fraudulently deceiving clients about Days' relationship to CAIR, concealing the fact that CAIR had fired him for criminal fraud.

"The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.," Yerushalmi said referring to the fact that CAIR has been named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial. "But our investigation and this complaint makes clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds."

The named defendants are: the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network Inc. (dba CAIR); Nihad Awad aka Nihad Hammad, who serves as executive director of CAIR National; Parvez Ahmed, who was the chairman of the board of CAIR National during the relevant time period; Tahra Goraya, who was the national director of CAIR but who has since resigned; Khadijah Athman, who is the manager of the "civil rights" division of CAIR; and Nadhira al-Khalili, Esq., who is in-house legal counsel for CAIR. All were handed subpoenas this evening.

According to the complaint, CAIR's in-house Washington, D.C.-based attorney Khalili was directly involved in taking the legal files out of the CAIR Virginia office and concealing them in the D.C. office.

Also named as defendants are Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, CAIR's director of communications and coordinator of communications, respectively.

WND previously reported, CAIR allegedly defrauded a number of Muslims recently seeking help with citizenship delays, and then threatened to sue them if they complained to the media, according to a security watchdog group which has obtained internal CAIR documents.

CAIR, which runs 33 offices and chapters nationwide, also recently helped defeat an anti-terror plan by Los Angeles police to map the local Muslim community for extremist neighborhoods.

Critics allege CAIR is itself an extremist organization that has employed or appointed to its boards of directors and advisers an inordinate number of radical co-conspirators, suspected and convicted terrorists, and other criminals.

Indeed, the list is long and growing, and includes:

• Muthanna al-Hanooti: The CAIR director's
  home was raided last year by FBI agents in connection with an active
  terrorism investigation. Agents also searched the offices of his
  advocacy group, Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International
  Relations, which al-Hanooti operates out of Dearborn, Mich., and
  Washington, D.C.

  FAAIR claims to be a consulting firm raising awareness of Sunni
  grievances in Iraq, but investigators suspect it's a front supporting
  the Sunni-led insurgency.

  Muthanna al-Hanooti, wearing traditional headgarb

  Al-Hanooti, who emigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, formerly helped
  run a suspected Hamas terror front called LIFE for Relief and
  Development. Its Michigan offices also were raided last September. In
  2004, LIFE's Baghdad office was raided by U.S. troops, who seized files
  and computers.

  Al-Hanooti is related to Shiek Mohammed al-Hanooti, an
  unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He
  currently leads prayers at a Washington-area mosque that aided some of
  the 9/11 hijackers.

  The FBI alleges al-Hanooti, an ethnic-Palestinian who also
  emigrated from Iraq, raised money for Hamas. In fact, "Al-Hanooti
  collected over $6 million for support of Hamas," according to a 2001
  FBI report, and was present with CAIR and Holy Land officials at a
  secret Hamas fundraising summit held last decade at a Philadelphia
  hotel.

  Prosecutors recently added his name to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.

  Al-Hanooti denies supporting Hamas, although he's praised
  Palestinian suicide bombers as "martyrs" who are "alive in the eyes of
  Allah."

  Earlier this year, his younger brother, Hamid al-Hanooti, was
  found dead in Iraq after reportedly being held by local security forces
  as a suspected terrorist.

   

• Laura Jaghlit: A civil-rights coordinator
  for CAIR, her Washington-area home was raided by federal agents after
  9/11 as part of an investigation into terrorist financing, money
  laundering and tax fraud. Her husband Mohammed Jaghlit, a key leader in
  the Saudi-backed SAAR network, is a target of the still-active probe.

  Last decade, Jaghlit sent two letters accompanying donations –
  one for $10,000, the other for $5,000 – from the SAAR Foundation to
  Sami al-Arian, now a convicted terrorist. In each letter, according to
  a federal affidavit, "Jaghlit instructed al-Arian not to disclose the
  contribution publicly or to the media."

  Investigators suspect the funds were intended for Palestinian
  terrorists via a U.S. front called WISE, which at the time employed an

  official who personally delivered a satellite phone battery to Osama
  bin Laden. The same official also worked for Jaghlit's group.

  In addition, Jaghlit donated a total of $37,200 to the Holy
  Land Foundation, which prosecutors say is a Hamas front. Jaghlit
  subsequently was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing
  case.

   

• Abdurahman Alamoudi: Another CAIR
  director, he is serving 23 years in federal prison for plotting
  terrorism. Alamoudi, who was caught on tape complaining bin Laden
  hadn't killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa,
  was one of al-Qaida's top fund-raisers in America, according to the
  U.S. Treasury Department.

  Nihad Awad

   

• Nihad Awad: For the first time, wiretap
  evidence from the Holy Land case puts CAIR's executive director at a
  Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and activists that was secretly
  recorded by the FBI. Participants allegedly hatched a plot to disguise
  payments to Hamas terrorists as charitable giving.

  During the meeting, according to FBI transcripts, Awad was recorded
  discussing the propaganda effort. He mentions Ghassan Dahduli, whom he
  worked with at the time at the Islamic Association for Palestine,
  another Hamas front. Both were IAP officers. Dahduli's name also was
  listed in the address book of bin Laden's personal secretary, Wadi
  al-Hage, who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the
  U.S. embassy bombings. Dahduli, an ethnic-Palestinian like Awad, was
  deported to Jordan after 9/11 for refusing to cooperate in the terror
  investigation.

  Awad's and Dahduli's phone numbers are listed in a Muslim
  Brotherhood document seized by federal investigators revealing
  "important phone numbers" for the "Palestine Section" of the
  Brotherhood in America. The court exhibit shows Hamas fugitive Mousa
  Abu Marzook listed on the same page with Awad.

  Omar Ahmad

   

• Omar Ahmad: U.S. prosecutors also named
  CAIR's founder and chairman emeritus as an unindicted co-conspirator in
  the Holy Land case. Ahmad too was placed at the Philly meeting, FBI
  special agent Lara Burns testified at the trial. Prosecutors also
  designated him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine
  Committee" in America. Ahmad, like his CAIR partner Awad, is
  ethnic-Palestinian.

  (Though both Ahmad and Awad were senior leaders of IAP, the Hamas
  front, neither of their biographical sketches posted on CAIR's website
  mentions their IAP past.)

   

• Nabil Sadoun: A current CAIR board member,
  Sadoun has served on the board of the United Association for Studies
  and Research, which investigators believe to be a key Hamas front in
  America. In fact, Sadoun co-founded UASR with Hamas leader Marzook. The
  Justice Department added UASR to the list of unindicted co-conspirators
  in the Holy Land case.

  Mohamed Nimer

   

• Mohamed Nimer: CAIR's current research director also served as a board director for UASR, the strategic arm for Hamas in the U.S.

  (Tellingly, CAIR neglects to mention Nimer's and Sadoun's roles in UASR in their bios.)

   

• Rafeeq Jaber: A founding director of CAIR,
  Jaber was the long-time president of the Islamic Association for
  Palestine. In 2002, a federal judge found that "the Islamic Association
  for Palestine has acted in support of Hamas." In his capacity as IAP
  chief, Jaber praised Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He also served on the
  board of a radical mosque in the Chicago area.

   

• Rabith Hadid: The CAIR fund-raiser was a
  founder of the Global Relief Foundation, which after 9/11 was
  blacklisted by Treasury for financing al-Qaida and other terror groups.
  Its assets were frozen in December 2001. Hadid was arrested on
  terror-related charges and deported to Lebanon in 2003.

  Siraj Wahhaj

  Siraj Wahhaj: A member of CAIR's board of advisers,
  Wahhaj was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World
  Trade Center bombing. The radical Brooklyn imam was close to convicted
  terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and defended him during his trial.

  He was also a featured speaker at tonight's dinner.

• Randall "Ismail" Royer: The former CAIR
  communications specialist and civil-rights coordinator is serving 20
  years in prison in connection with the Virginia Jihad Network, which he
  led while employed by CAIR at its Washington headquarters. The group
  trained to kill U.S. soldiers overseas, cased the FBI headquarters, and
  cheered the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Al-Qaida operative Ahmed
  Abu Ali, convicted of plotting to assassinate President Bush, was among
  those who trained with Royer's Northern Virginia cell.

   

• Bassam Khafagi: Another CAIR official, Khafagi
  was arrested in 2003 while serving as CAIR's director of community
  affairs. He pleaded guilty to charges of bank and visa fraud stemming
  from a federal counterterror probe of his leadership role in the
  Islamic Assembly of North America, which has supported al-Qaida and
  advocated suicide attacks on America. He was sentenced to 10 months in
  prison and deported to his native Egypt.

  Ghassan Elashi

   

• Ghassan Elashi: One of CAIR's founding
  directors, he was convicted in 2004 of illegally shipping high-tech
  goods to terror state Syria, and is serving 80 months in prison. He's
  also charged with providing material support to Hamas in the Holy Land
  Foundation trial. He was chairman of the charity, which provided seed
  capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Marzook.

   

• Hamza Yusuf: The FBI investigated the CAIR
  board member after 9/11, because just two days before the attacks, he
  made an ominous prediction to a Muslim audience.

  "This country is facing a terrible fate and the reason for that is
  because this country stands condemned," Yusuf warned. "It stands
  condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did. And lest
  people forget, Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the
  Muslim lands."

CAIR, which receives financial backing from Saudi and Emirati
royalty, denies charges that it has a secret agenda to Islamize
America. But a Muslim Brotherhood document declassified in the Holy
Land case reveals that CAIR's parent was among Muslim organizations
enlisted in a secret plot to destroy the American system from within
and eventually take over the country.

Written early last decade in Arabic, the manifesto lays bare
the subversive role of CAIR's forerunner, the Islamic Association for
Palestine, and other Muslim groups in America to carry out a "grand
Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from
within and sabotaging its miserable house by the hands of the
believers, so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made
victorious over all other religions."

CAIR's founder Ahmad, while claiming to be a moderate and
patriotic American, last decade told a group of Muslims in Northern
California that they are in America to help assert Islam's rule over
the country.

"Islam
isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become
dominant," a local reporter quoted him as saying, adding, "The Koran,
the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in
America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Ahmad insists he was misquoted. However, an FBI wiretap
transcript quotes Ahmad agreeing with terrorist suspects gathered last
decade at the secret Philly meeting to "camouflage" their true
intentions.

He compared it to the head fake in basketball. "This is like
one who plays basketball: He makes a player believe that he is doing
this, while he does something else," Ahmad said. "I agree with you.
Like they say, politics is a completion of war."

What's more, Hooper, CAIR's communications director, also has
expressed his wish to overturn the U.S. system of government in favor
of an "Islamic" state.

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like
the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the
future," Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star
Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm
going to do it through education."

Though conceding he made the remark, Hooper argues that he's
never advocated violence. He says he and Muslims like him should work
instead through the media and use "education" to help turn America into
an Islamic state.

For media inquiries, e-mail Tricia, or call (910) 270-8966.