More prison jihad. How did this man get to be approved as a chaplain? Was his adherence to the Religion of Peaceâ„¢ enough to allay any concerns about his record?
The New York Post story below is essentially the same story I commented upon here, but the essential detail of Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid’s murder conviction has been added in. The editor, however, did not bother to remove the gratuitous moral equivalence of the mention of the rabbi who got in hot water for an illicit bar mitzvah for an inmate’s son. Murder and box cutters equal an under-the-table bar mitzvah in our enlightened new multicultural world.
“Muslim chaplain ‘smuggled’ box-cutter blades into jail,” by Reuven Blau and Dan Mangan for the New York Post, February 4 (thanks to Pamela):
A city Department of Correction Muslim chaplain who served 14 years in prison for murder and robbery was arrested today for carrying three utility blades and a pair of scissors into a lower Manhattan jail, authorities said.
The chaplain, Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid, had the utility blades and scissors in his duffel bag when he arrived at the Manhattan Detention Complex in the morning, according to the city Department of Investigation.
Read the DOI release here (PDF)
The dangerous items were found after an X-ray machine alerted correction officers to the presence of metal in the bag, the DOI said.
Authorities did not say why Abdu-Shahid was visiting the jail, commonly known as the Tombs, or why he was carrying the scissors and the rectangular blades, which were 1-and-1/2 inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide.
Abdu-Shahid, 58, was arrested at the scene and charged with four counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband — a felony carrying a maximum 7-year prison term — and four counts of the same charge in the second degree, a misdemeanor.
The Staten Island resident, who is married with three children, was ordered held in lieu of $30,000 bail during a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court last night, where he appeared in a long robe and navy blue skull cap.
His lawyer, James McQueeney said the blades were ‘injector razor blades from an injector razor,” and that when Abdu-Shahid told that to the correction officers who stopped him, “his explanation that he didn’t know there were there [in the duffel bag] was accepted.”
“He was allowed into the” Tombs after the blades were confiscated,” McQueeney said. “Only later were questions raised about this.” […]
Abdu-Shahid was hired as a Muslim imam chaplain by the DOC three years ago tomorrow, and has a salary of $49,471 annually.
State Corrections Department records show that he entered state prison in September 1979 to begin serving a sentence of 15-years-to-life for a second-degree murder and a first-degree robbery committed in Manhattan. He was paroled in August 1993, and finished his parole in August 2001. […]
But a city Correction source said of Abdu-Shahid’s arrest, “It’s a disgrace that taxpayers are funding Muslim chaplains who not only have criminal records, but also are promoting violence.”
Abdu-Shahid’s boss — head chaplain Umar Abdul-Jalil — himself was hired by the DOC despite having done a 14-year stint in prison for drug dealing.
Abdul-Jalil who also is a Muslim imam, last year was stripped of two weeks vacation as punishment for signing off on a plan by Tombs chaplain Rabbi Leib Glanz to allow a bar mitzvah party for the son of an inmate in that jail.
After The Post uncovered the bar mitzvah — which included catered food, a live band, and scores of non-inmate guests, Abdul-Jalil among them — the politically connected Glanz resigned as chaplain, as did Correction security chief Peter Curcio.
In addition to the party, Glanz had also routinely arranged other preferential treatment for Jewish inmates at the Tombs, including allowing them nearly unfettered use of his office and phone, and bringing them food from the outside, The Post disclosed….