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AMP Report – January 10, 2007
Damra's handover to Israel puzzles Muslims
Cleveland Muslims have reacted with angry incredulity to news that the U.S. government sent their one-time spiritual leader into the hands of Israeli security and that he was arrested before ever reaching home.
While some called for help pinpointing Fawaz Damra's whereabouts and condition, others accused the U.S. government of deception and possible crimes in his disappearance.
"I didn't think we could deport people to where they'd be in harm's way," said Bashar Hamdan, a member of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, which Damra led for nearly 15 years. "We sent him to prison in Israel. I thought that was against the rules?"
The law allows the government to deport people to nearly any nation that agrees to accept them, provided they have some connection to that land, they would not face torture and the deportation doesn't break any prior legal agreements.
Fawaz Damra, a Palestinian originally from the West Bank city of Nablus, was ordered deported in June 2004 for hiding ties to Palestinian extremist groups when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994. During his trial, jurors were shown evidence of Damra raising money for Islamic Jihad in 1991.
Damra later apologized for anti-Semitic remarks and said he was a changed man. He fought to stay in the United States but finally accepted deportation rather than remain in jail, and the government went searching for a country to agree to take him.
Damra holds Jordanian citizenship, but Jordan refused to accept him, said Damra's lawyer, Mo Abdrabboh.
Israel arrested the former imam of Ohio's largest mosque after he was deported from the United States last week, the Shin Bet internal security service confirmed on January 9, 2007.
Smadar Ben-Natan, an Israeli lawyer retained by Damra's family to represent him, said he was being held at the Kishon prison.
A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Greg Palmore, said U.S. agents accompanied Damra to the Allenby Bridge, an Israel-controlled crossing into the West Bank. "Mr. Damra was presented to Israeli immigration officials for admission to the West Bank," Palmore said.
His attorney, Michael Birach, has said Damra was a victim of immigration officials who wanted to look tough after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Damra was born in the West Bank town of Nablus. He came to the United States in 1988 and in 1991 was hired as imam, or spiritual leader, of the Islamic Center of Cleveland in Parma. (Source Associated Press/ Cleveland Plain Dealer)
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