Ming the Merciless, who kindly alerted me to this article, notes that CAIR's [1] Ibrahim "Frustrated" Hooper "says he was assured in the past by Abunar that he had nothing to do with the fire. Hmmm....Why was that a topic between Hooper and Abunar? Did Hooper suspect that the guy was an arsonist all along? How did the topic of the so-called victim's own guilt come up in their conversations? There may be an explanation, but why was Hooper and CAIR hassling the police and demanding hate crime investigations in a case like this?" I think we have just found more questions that Poor Ibrahim [2] won't answer. From the [3] New York Times, with thanks to Ming:

McALLEN, Tex., Sept. 29 - The owner of a Middle Eastern meat market who had said he was the victim of a hate crime in this border town was arrested and arraigned Tuesday on a felony arson charge that he set fire to his own business.

The man, Amjad Abunar, had complained that "Go Home" was twice spray-painted on a door of his Al Madinah Market before a fire on Aug. 6 that gutted the small delicatessen. Only last week, the graffiti and fire were cited as evidence by a Washington advocacy group that hate crimes against Muslims were on the rise in Texas.

Bond for Mr. Abunar was set at $150,000, and he remained in jail on Wednesday.

Representatives of the advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had complained that McAllen officials were not investigating the fire as a possible hate crime, said they were stunned Wednesday to learn of Mr. Abunar's arrest.

Ibrahim Hooper, a council official in Washington, said Mr. Abunar had assured him he had nothing to do with setting the fire.