But if he was, why didn't he say so on his green card application, and come clean then? And what about his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is just as much an Islamic supremacist group as Hamas (which defines itself as a branch of the Brotherhood)?
An update on this story. "Imam's defense: He was tortured into 'confessing' he joined Hamas: Deportation trial under way for respected Passaic cleric," by Brian Donohue for the Star-Ledger, May 9 (thanks to Twostellas):
The deportation trial of a popular North Jersey Muslim leader began yesterday with the lead government witness testifying that the cleric pleaded guilty in an Israeli military court to being a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas from 1989 to 1991.That arrest forms the core of the case that U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorneys are bringing against Mohammad Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.
Federal agents, however, knew nothing of Qatanani's arrest until the imam contacted the FBI and told them about it in 2005, an FBI agent testified later in the day. That was 12 years after Qatanani moved to the United States, and he was seeking the agency's help with his stalled green card application. [...]
On the sidewalk outside the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, hundreds of supporters gathered in a noisy but peaceful demonstration that lasted more than five hours. Throughout the day, Qatanani sat alongside his wife and six children, his youngest son reading the Koran while his daughter studied for her Advanced Placement U.S. history exam. His wife and three oldest children also face deportation; the younger children are U.S. citizens. [...]
Testifying for the Department of Homeland Security, Amos Guiora, a professor at the University of Utah School of Law and a former judge and prosecutor in the Israeli-occupied territories, read from Israeli court records showing that Qatanani pleaded guilty in 1993 to aiding and being a member of Hamas. He was sentenced to three months in prison.
Qatanani has denied making such a confession or having any ties to Hamas, saying he was tortured while in detention and convicted in absentia.
During cross-examination, Qatanani's attorney, Claudia Slovinsky, homed in on discrepancies in the Israeli court documents -- including the lack of any specific mention in the court records that Qatanani was present at his conviction.
She also attacked the credibility of the Israeli military court system, reading from reports by Human Rights Watch and other groups that found the Israeli military had routinely used tactics like sleep deprivation, hooding and exposure to cold temperatures on detainees during that time period.
"The judges were soldiers, the prosecutors were soldiers," she said.
Conviction rates for Palestinians detained in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during that period ranged from 90 to 95 percent. And the military's interrogation tactics were later banned by a 1999 Israeli supreme court ruling that equated them with torture.
Guiora conceded that, subject to such conditions, a detainee like Qatanani "no doubt will tell an interrogator what he thinks he wants to hear."
Qatanani, 44, has been praised by some law enforcement and elected officials here for forging close ties with authorities while leading one of the state's largest mosques. And testimony revealed that federal agents might not have learned about his arrest if Qatanani had not turned to them for help.
Angel Alicea, an FBI special agent serving on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, said he met with Qatanani after mosque officials called the bureau to discuss his green card application.
Qatanani was frustrated, his lawyer said, because he was unable to get an interview with immigration officials and his work visa had expired, forcing the loss of his driver's license. "He thought we had something to do with it," Alicea said.
During that February 2005 interview, Alicea said Qatanani told him he had been arrested by Israeli soldiers a week after he crossed from Jordan to the West Bank in 1993 and that he was detained for three months, kept in a cold room and chained to a small chair.
But on his green card application, Alicea said, Qatanani had answered "no" to a question asking applicants whether they had been arrested, fined, charged or imprisoned.
Qatanani, he said, also admitted being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a controversial organization that is banned by the governments of Israel, Egypt and Syria, which argue that it has ties to terrorists. It is not on the U.S. State Department's list of known terrorist organizations. After that interview, Alicea said, he obtained the Israeli court records of Qatanani's arrest....
"But on his green card application, Alicea said, Qatanani had answered "no" to a question asking applicants whether they had been arrested, fined, charged or imprisoned."
A Muslim immgrant wannabbee lying on his immigration application?...Gee, who would have thought they would do that?..
It must have happened during the two hour immigration process where the Muslim employees in the Immigration office were doing their best to get everybody in and out in one day..
There is another issue here, is the producing offspring born in the US, and becoming US citizens. the gov't needs to change the law of "anchor babies", it was actually done in Canada years ago, problably could not be done now, but l do believe there are those in the US gov't with sense of basic
believe in rule of law. Take this so called "respected Passaic cleric," out of the US along with his brood.
"Deportation trial under way for respected Passaic cleric'
-- headline of the article about Qatanani
"Respected" by whom? For what? It is not the job of the reporter to tell readers what to think about Qatanani. If he is "respected" by his fellow Muslims, so what? Do we know exactly what others think of him? We do not. And it is not the reporter's job to take sides so blatantly.
The reporter's whole piece appears to have been written by the PR manager of the imam's campaign. There is, for example, this:
"On the sidewalk outside the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, hundreds of supporters gathered in a noisy but peaceful demonstration that lasted more than five hours. Throughout the day, Qatanani sat alongside his wife and six children, his youngest son reading the Koran while his daughter studied for her Advanced Placement U.S. history exam. His wife and three oldest children also face deportation; the younger children are U.S. citizens."
They were "peaceful" perhaps -- apparently we are supposed to be grateful for that -- but what does it mean when not a dozen but "hundreds" of people demonstrate, and not for a half-hour but for "more than five hours" and do this not in front of, say, a store that it is claimed has unfair labor practices, but in front of the Peter Rodino Federal Building in an attempt to influence a legal hearing, a hearing that should never be the subject of five-hour, or one-hour, demonstrations, by "hundreds" or by a dozen people, who are attempting to influence the application of clear rules by those whose task it is not to admit, as citizens or permanent residents, those who lie on their applications.
And the reporter also suggests, falsely, that Qatanani simply appeared to report -- truthful fellow that the reporter wishes you to think he is -- sua sponte, that oh, yes, he had once upon a time been arrested and admitted to being a member of Hamas:
"Federal agents, however, knew nothing of Qatanani's arrest until the imam contacted the FBI and told them about it in 2005, an FBI agent testified later in the day."
In fact, as one learns later in the story, Qatanani had lied on his green card application:
"But on his green card application, Alicea said, Qatanani had answered "no" to a question asking applicants whether they had been arrested, fined, charged or imprisoned."
Furthermore, he did not simply appear and volunteer the information that he had previously lied. No, what happened is that the Qatatani was having trouble getting his green card, and he went in to discuss that matter. And he didn't show up simply to reveal a little "error" -- that is, lie -- on his original green card application. No, he showed up, and then was interrogated by an FBI agent, Angel Alicea. And it was in the course of that interrogation that he revealed that in fact he had been arrested, had been charged, had been imprisoned, all of which he had chosen previously to lie about on his green card application:
"Angel Alicea, an FBI special agent serving on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, said he met with Qatanani after mosque officials called the bureau to discuss his green card application.
Qatanani was frustrated, his lawyer said, because he was unable to get an interview with immigration officials and his work visa had expired, forcing the loss of his driver's license. "He thought we had something to do with it," Alicea said.
During that February 2005 interview, Alicea said Qatanani told him he had been arrested by Israeli soldiers a week after he crossed from Jordan to the West Bank in 1993 and that he was detained for three months, kept in a cold room and chained to a small chair."
Of course the absurdity of Qatatani's claim that such a "confession" was extorted from him through "torture" (the same claims of "torture" are being made by every other person released from Guatanamo, the place where every prisoner gains 20-40 pounds, where the guards must wear gloves to touch the "Holy" Qur'an, and every conceivable effort is made to meet every demand of prisoners who are unrepentant, and often murderously dangerous in their behavior toward the despised Infidels who guard them) is reported, with a straight face, by this reporter.
So we are made to see, in this outrageously tendentious report, how heartless is a government that would deport this Good Man, this "respected cleric," this man who came in, we are led to believe, to volunteer information detrimental to his own case because, you see, like George Washington, he could not tell a lie, or rather, he simply could not live with himself if he had not owned up to his initial lie, and instead forthrightly told the truth (just ask agent Angel Alicea if that is how it went).
And there is this take-the-cake piquant detail:
"Throughout the day, Qatanani sat alongside his wife and six children, his youngest son reading the Koran while his daughter studied for her Advanced Placement U.S. history exam. His wife and three oldest children also face deportation; the younger children are U.S. citizens."
So there he is. The put-upon truth-teller and respected pastor, with his wife, and his six children, with his youngest son reading the Koran, that holy book, and his daughter, studying like a good American child for the AP US history exam. Does anyone doubt that these must be good, true, loyal Americans? Coudl she be studying for the AP American history exam, and conceivably not be a good and loyal American, conceivably owe her allegiance to a Total Belief-System that flatly contradicts the spirit and letter of the American Constitution, and could she, and her siblings, and her mother, and her father, a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (why, he admjitted it himself, to agent Alicea, perhaps hoping that by offering such an admission he would gain credibility for his denial that he was a supporter or member of Hamas -- which, he knew, was on the list of terrorist organizations while the malevolent Ikhwan is, as yet, not), really be risks to this country?
Oh yes they could.
Hugh pounced on the exact same thing that I would comment upon.
"Deportation trial under way for respected Passaic cleric"
When the news media includes such subjective terms as "respected" in a headline it is a marker that the piece is not objective but subjec tive. Any person who can understand the differences between objective and subjective words can then take the article for what it is worth.
UNfortunately, with the Wm. Ayres of the world training our teachers the distinction is lost on most of those who have been indoctrinated into the world citizen paradigm.
But it is so simple that even the most obtuse can grasp the concept that being respected is not a universal sort of adjective, but applies to those who the reporter met in their investigation.
Another UNfortunate aspect of todays UNeducated children is that even such words as torture have been misapplied to confuse issues, what was the immigrants torture?
Was it that he was deprived of what he considered his religious right to murder? Was he too cool and liked the temperature higher? Does sleep deprivation mean that he was roused from slumber to attend his trial, or that they interrupted his nap to ask him questions?
That those who are indoctrinated to listen and obey such a person are turned out to attempt to influence a court of law, should be a warning to any judge who treasures the concept of an independant judicial branch.
No offence to the Islamophiliacs among us, but the man lied to gain admission to the states, and nothing he has done since seems to make one think that his lies were an aberration. Pretend that he was a man from Bolivia and lied on his application, dont make special treatment just because there is political pressure.
It would be interesting to know just what the boy was reading in the Quran. And was he really reading it, or just staring at an open page? The family scene was staged for effect...
He lied on his green card application .
and thanks to the Israelis who keep perfect records.
because if you count on the agents of the joint force of terrorism in this country.to find anything wrong with an imam ..... GOOD LUCK
Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.