Miami Muslim Cleric Hate
Florida imam convicted in Pakistani Taliban case
By CURT ANDERSON | Associated Press – Mon, Mar 4, 2013
MIAMI (AP) — An
elderly Muslim cleric was convicted Monday of funneling thousands of
dollars to support the Pakistani Taliban terror organization, which is
blamed for suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed both
Americans and Pakistanis.
The jury
returned its verdict after the two-month trial of Hafiz Khan, the
77-year-old imam at a downtown Miami mosque. Khan was found guilty of
all four charges: two conspiracy counts and two counts of providing
material support to terrorists.
"Despite being
an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of
peace," said U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, whose office prosecuted the
case. "Instead, he acted with others to support terrorists to further
acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming."
Each charge carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Robert Scola set sentencing for May 30.
Prosecutors
built their case largely around hundreds of FBI recordings of
conversations in which Khan expressed support for Taliban attacks and
discussed sending about $50,000 to Pakistan. There were also recordings
in which Khan appeared to back the overthrow of Pakistan's government
in favor of strict Islamic law, praised the killing of American
military personnel and lauded the failed 2010 attempt to detonate a
bomb in New York's Times Square.
"He said these
things. He admitted these things. He did all of these things,"
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley said during closing arguments.
Khan, who
testified over four combative days in his own defense, insisted the
money he sent overseas was for family, charity and business reasons —
above all, his religious school, known as a madrassa, in Pakistan's
Swat Valley. Khan also said he repeatedly lied about harboring
extremist views to obtain $1 million from a man who turned out to be an
FBI informant wearing a wire to record their talk.
"That is not
supporting terrorism," said Khan attorney Khurrum Wahid in a closing
argument. "That is an old guy running a scam, who got scammed."
Prosecutors,
however, said the purported $1 million offer was never heard on any
tapes and no other witnesses testified about its existence. The
informant, identified in court papers as Mahmood Siddiqui, did not
testify.
"That is an absurd story," Shipley said. "This whole defense is a lie."
One of Khan's
sons, Irfan, said after the verdict that his father was mentally unable
to express himself clearly on the witness stand.
"I wish he
didn't have dementia so he could explain himself better," said Irfan
Khan, a Miami taxi driver. "You're asking him questions about five or
six years ago. That really affects things."
Jurors declined
to comment to reporters outside the courthouse. Their verdict was
reached at the start of the fifth day of deliberations.
Wahid said he will appeal, adding that it is difficult to defend against a very broad U.S. terrorism support law.
"It makes me
very concerned about whether we still have a First Amendment in this
country," Wahid said. "Can we say what we feel or do we now have to be
concerned that our words can be criminalized?"
The case began
with six defendants indicted in May 2011 but ended with only Khan on
trial. Two of Khan's sons, Izhar and Irfan, were cleared of all charges
and three more defendants have remained free in Pakistan, which does
not extradite its citizens to face U.S. criminal charges.
One of those in
Pakistan, Ali Rehman, testified via video link that he was not a
Taliban fighter as U.S. prosecutors claim. Rehman said he owned a
women's cosmetics store that the Taliban disliked because products
showed photos of women. He said he handled more than $30,000 in
financial transactions for Khan, mainly to invest in a potato chip
factory run by Khan's son-in-law.
After Rehman's
testimony, Pakistani authorities shut down the video link from an
Islamabad hotel, leaving Khan without the testimony of 10 witnesses on
his behalf.
Arrests of South Florida imams carried out under new federal rules
Authorities hope to defuse tensions and calm concern about hate crimes
By Curtis Morgan, The Miami Herald
May 16, 2011
The trilling
chant of the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, rang out Sunday
afternoon at the humble little white house behind a green fence that is
South Florida's oldest mosque. Inside, a dozen men and one boy — shoes
left outside as a cleansing gesture — quietly recited prayers and bowed
to Mecca.
There was a
single stark change in the ancient ritual this time — the longtime
spiritual leader of Miami's Flagler Mosque was not there to lead it.
Dozens of
federal agents appeared at the early morning prayer Saturday to arrest
Hafiz Muhammad Sher Ali Khan, the frail 76-year-old imam, and two of
his sons — including one who led the Masjid Jamaat Al-Mumineen Mosque
in Margate — on charges of funneling money to the Pakistani Taliban to
buy weapons and support militant training. Hafiz Khan and son Izhar
Khan, 24, made their first appearance in federal court in Miami on
Monday. Irfan Khan was scheduled to appear in federal court in Los
Angeles late Monday afternoon.
A day after the
raids, members of the mosque as well as South Florida's Muslim
community remained concerned. Some fear ugly backlash. Nezar Hamze,
executive director of the Council on America-Islamic Relations, said
two hate calls had been directed at the Miami mosque and one at the
Margate mosque. For other Muslims, he said, the case, built largely on
bank records and taped phone calls, rekindled the sense they're being
singled out for secret surveillance.
"The FBI has a
very important job to do and we support it," said Hamze. "However,
their job sometimes crosses the line and interferes with the rights of
peaceful Muslim people."
But in at least
small ways, the South Florida arrests also signaled a subtle positive
shift in dealings between federal law enforcement agencies and the
Muslim-American community it has monitored closely since the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks.
The raids were
conducted under new national rules of engagement intended to show more
sensitivity toward religious practices and tamp down the flames of
haters after a series of outreach meetings in South Florida this year
among federal law enforcers and Muslim leaders.
When U.S.
Attorney Wifredo Ferrer and John V. Gillies, special agent in charge of
the FBI's Miami Office, announced the arrests, they stressed that other
mosque members and the rest of the community should not be branded by
the alleged terrorist actions of a handful of its members. Ferrer, in a
phone interview Sunday with The Herald, reiterated that message.
"They are as
American as apple pie," he said. "They are just as concerned about
terrorist attacks as anyone else. They do not want to live in fear."
Ferrer said the
outreach programs were initiated last year by U.S. Attorney General
Eric Holder to address concerns over increasing tensions and hate
crimes — including a pipe bomb explosion last year at a Jacksonville
mosque — and law enforcement tactics that some Muslim leaders have
criticized as heavy-handed, including planting undercover agents in
mosques.
Along with the
outreach meetings, the U.S. Attorney's Office earlier this month hosted
a training session at Broward College in Davie for 65 federal, state
and local agents and officers aimed at "at enhancing law enforcement
officers' cultural competence and sensitivity on issues involving the
Arab, Muslim and Sikh American communities."
Ferrer said his
message to Muslim leaders is that they should not feel isolated. "We
want to make it very clear that we are their U.S. attorney, we are
their Justice Department."
Asad Ba-Yunus, a
former Miami-Dade assistant state attorney who now serves as legal
adviser for the Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organization, said
the charges against the two imams and four others came as a "shock" but
he praised the handling of the arrests.
After the
heavily armed agents flooded the grounds of the Flagler Mosque, a small
converted house in a modest neighborhood west of Milam Dairy Road and
north of Flagler Drive, they waited for morning prayer to finish before
arresting Khan outside.
"Instead of
barging in with 25 agents and trampling all over the place, one agent
took off his shoes and went in," he said. ""They respected the
congregation that was there."
After the
arrest, agents informed other Muslim leaders before going public,
Ba-Yunus said, so there was some lead time to prepare for media
inquiries. Ba-Yunus saw those steps as progress stemming from meetings
with federal authorities.
Still, despite
the kinder, gentler arrests, Muslim leaders say many in the community
remain wary of federal authorities, their suspicions fueled by cases
like one last year in Irvine, Cal., where a confidential informant's
mission backfired. Mosque members, alarmed about his calls for
violence, tried to turn him in to authorities.
Ba-Yanus said
most Muslims presume their mosques have been infiltrated and, at a
meeting with the FBI, he argued that building trust with honest
community leaders would provide more reliable information. For many
Muslims, Hamze said, simply voicing a political opinion against U.S.
occupation of a country or a trip to the Mideast can trigger a visit
from federal agents — a practice he said put up barriers to better
cooperation.
As for
allegations against Hafiz Kahn and others, Ba-Yanus and Hamze condemned
any support of terrorism but said they wanted to see the evidence
before passing judgment. In reading quotes from phone calls in the
indictment, Hamze wondered if conversations had been misconstrued and
"something had been lost in the translation."
Khan's
19-year-old grandson, Alam Zeb, accused of collecting and distributing
money sent from the U.S. to the Pakistani Taliban, on Sunday denied the
charges against him and his family.
"It is
baseless," Zeb told The Associated Press in Sarsnai, a village in
Pakistan's Swat Valley where the elder Khan used to live and
established a madrassa, or Islamic school.