Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin is serving a life sentence for the murder of a police officer |
Already under increased scrutiny after revelations in a new book, the Council on American-Islamic Relations now is defending itself against documented links to a federal case that drew national attention this week when an indicted Detroit imam was killed in an FBI raid.
Internal documents from an undercover investigation by the authors of "Muslim Mafia" show CAIR helped finance the legal appeal of Muslim cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who is named in the Detroit criminal complaint as the spiritual leader of a radical group that calls for violent action to establish a sovereign Islamic state within the U.S.
The federal complaint also states one of the 11 indicted followers of the imam who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the FBI Wednesday, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, attended a mosque "affiliated with CAIR" in Windsor, Ontario, just across the Canadian border from Detroit.
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The criminal complaint suggests CAIR literature supporting Al-Amin incited Abdullah to violence.
"CAIR and everybody send me all of this stuff. I get sick," he was recorded as saying. "I got some soldiers with me. ... Brothers that I know would, you know, if I say 'Let's go, we going to go and do something.'"
Abdullah and his "soldiers" trained with weapons and explosives to carry out a plot to "take down" the U.S. government in violent jihad, according to the complaint. Al-Amin, the complaint adds, has been designated by the "nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group" led by Abdullah to be the ruler of the future Islamic state.
Formerly a leader of the Black Panther Party known as H. Rap Brown, Al-Amin is serving a life sentence at the Florence, Colo., supermax prison for shooting two police officers in Georgia and murdering one of them.
As revealed in a confidential letter obtained by the authors of "Muslim Mafia," P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, CAIR made an "additional contribution" of $9,000 in April 2007 to Al-Amin's legal appeal.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah was killed Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire during an FBI raid (Muslim Alliance of North America) |
The letter of thanks addressed by the cop-killer's lawyer-wife to CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad passed on "greetings" from the imprisoned imam.
Attorney Karima Al-Amin wrote:
As-salaamu alaikum:
On behalf of the Justice Fund, we extend appreciation to you and CAIR for the additional contribution of $9,000.00 to be used for legal expenses relative to Imam Jamil Al-Amin's case. The contribution particularly was needed to defray the cost of the recent habeas hearing held in Reidsville, Georgia. We certainly were delighted that you responded to our request in a timely manner.
As always, Imam Jamil sends his greetings and appreciation for the assistance.
Sincerely,
Karima Al-Amin
Attorney at Law
Al-Amin, a black convert to Islam, shot two Atlanta deputies in 2000 who were trying to arrest him for failing to appear before a judge on auto theft charges. One deputy was shot in both legs, the left arm and the chest. The other, Fulton County Deputy Ricky Kinchen, died after Al-Amin pumped him with six bullets. A jury convicted Al-Amin in 2002 and sentenced him to life in prison, but CAIR jumped to his defense, celebrating him as a martyr.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad |
The group participated in an Atlanta news conference protesting the guilty verdict, and Awad visited him in jail.
CAIR is listed as a member of the National Support Committee for Imam Jamil, which has a stated goal of raising $1.3 million to pay for a team of lawyers to free Al-Amin.
"Whoever shields a Muslim, Allah will shield him in this world and the next," the committee says in a fundraising letter. "Allah will aid a servant so long as the servant aids his brother."
'Complete shock'
Abdullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was one of 12 named in the indictment released Wednesday, which includes charges of conspiracy, dealing in stolen goods and weapons offenses. Eight of Abdullah's followers were in custody Wednesday night and three remained at large.
The head of CAIR's Michigan branch, Dawud Walid, told the Detroit Free Press any attempt to link Abdullah to his group is "bogus."
He insisted CAIR has no connection with the Windsor mosque or with Abdullah.
CAIR's national headquarters, three blocks from the U.S. Capitol |
"No one in that mosque has ever been a board member, or a staffer, or even a dues-paying member for that matter," Walid asserted.
But Walid told the Associated Press he knew Abdullah to be a "respected imam in the Muslim community."
"He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people," Walid said. "I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior."
Abdullah served together with at least two CAIR figures in the governing body of the Muslim Alliance in North America, or MANA, a national network of mosques, Muslim organizations and individuals "committed to work together to address certain urgent needs within the Muslim community."
Former CAIR national advisory board member and current fundraiser Siraj Wahhaj is a MANA leader along with Ihsan Bagby, a longtime member of CAIR's board of directors.
CAIR board of directors |
In addition to their membership in the governing body, Wahhaj is the "amir," or chief, of MANA's executive committee, and Bagby is the staff general secretary. Al-Amin is one of the founders of MANA, which is made up of radical black converts to Islam, including one of the imams of the 9/11 mosque near the Pentagon.
Bagby told the Detroit News the FBI raid and death of Abdullah shocked the African-American Muslim community nationwide.
"We want to know what happened," said Bagby. "We had no inkling of any kind of criminal activity. This is a complete shock to all of us."
But as "Muslim Mafia" author Sperry reports in his previous book "Infiltration," Bagby once stated his belief that Muslims cannot be faithful to the U.S.
"Ultimately we can never be full citizens of this country," Bagby said, "because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."
As WND reported, Wahhaj – who is on record urging a violent overthrow of the "filthy" U.S. government assisted by jihad warriors armed with Uzis – gave a fundraising appeal for CAIR at its 15th annual banquet in Arlington, Va., Saturday night.
Siraj Wahhaj |
'Every Muslim should have a weapon'
An affadavit filed with the complaint by FBI agent Gary Leone said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, called his followers "to an offensive jihad, rather than a defensive jihad."
"He regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law-enforcement rhetoric."
Abdullah and his followers, Leone says, "have trained regularly in the use of firearms and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting."
The imam preached that "every Muslim should have a weapon and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed."
Leone says members and former members of the mosque "have stated they are willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence."
Site of Detroit mosque that housed shooting range (Google Earth) |
The FBI agent says that when Abdullah's mosque was evicted from its previous location in Detroit, a search turned up empty shell casings and large holes in the concrete wall of an indoor "shooting range."
A confidential source who admitted he was a follower of Abdullah, says Leone, saw the imam "discipline children inside the mosque by beating them with sticks on their hands, knees and legs, until they were covered with bruises."
The source said Abdullah beat one boy so badly with sticks he was unable to walk for several days.
"Abdullah and Al-Amin both served Muslim Brotherhood entities whose objective is to wage 'civilization jihad' against America to 'destroy' it," said veteran FBI special agent John Guandolo, who worked counterterrorism cases out of the bureau's Washington field office.
"Al-Amin served CAIR," Guandolo added, "and was on the board of ISNA (Islamic Society of North America, CAIR's sister organization) – both leading Muslim Brotherhood entities in America and both unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorism financing case in U.S. history," the criminal trial of the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas' fundraising arm in America.
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