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November 25, 2005

US: Ohio Imam To Be Deported

The US Federal authorities today arrested the Imam of Ohio's largest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland, in the first step towards deporting him from the country.

In June 2004 Fawaz Damra was convicted of lying about his associations with terrorist groups when he applied for US citizenship.

The Nablus-born imam had denied involvements with Afghan Refugee Services, the Islamic Committee for Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, even though footage was later found of Damra raising money for Islamic Jihad. This group has been proscribed as a terror organisation by the State Department since 1989. He also worked with the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, N.Y where he knew other radicals.

Jurors had been shown video footage from a speech he made in 1991, in which he said; ""[Muslims should be] directing all rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." They were also shown video of a speech made in 1989 in which he said "terrorism and terrorism alone is the path to liberation".

Damra was given a jail sentence for this offence in September of two months imprisonment and four months' house arrest. He had been told by District Judge James Gwin that he could begin his jail sentence in November 2004, at the end of Ramadan. His US citizenship was revoked, but Judge Gwin ordered he could not be deported until after an appellate ruling.

He served his prison sentence yet still appealed against the finding of the court, but on March 15 a federal appeals court upheld the decision.

Born in the West Bank in 1961, Fawaz Damra studied Islamic Law in Jordan and arrived in the US in the mid-1980s. He was the imam at the al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn, New York from 1986 until 1990 when he moved to Ohio and took up residence as the imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland.

In a transcript of a television broadcast for PBS he said he only raised money for Palestinian orphans. In this broadcast, it was claimed that Damraz' life had "been transformed" while attending Hartford Seminary, a multi-faith environment.

Following his arrest today, a statement by Brian Moskowitz, special agent with the federal office in Detroit read "With today's arrest, ICE begins the process of removing from the United States a criminal alien who has unequivocally supported terrorists and terrorist organizations."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 25, 2005 4:57 PM

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