Former CAIR Board Member Deported

A Muslim organization with a chapter in Oklahoma again has to refute claims of ties to terrorism.

Friday, February 26th 2010, 3:14 pm

By: News 9


By Jon Jordan, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A Muslim organization with a chapter in Oklahoma again has to refute claims of ties to terrorism. It comes after the organization, Council on American Islamic Relations, better known as CAIR, had a former board member deported back to his native country.

Nabil Sadoun, the former national board member, was deported because he failed to show up at his deportation hearing. The judge in the case made it very clear he had evidence from the government that Sadoun had ties to Hamas that he failed to make public.

For CAIR it's been one negative story after another. In 2007 the Islamic organization was named an un-indicted coconspirator in a case that found the then largest Islamic charity in the U.S. had been funding terrorist groups. In 2009 Ghassan Elashi, of the charities leaders and the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, was sentenced to 65 years in jail after being convicted for funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas. Now, in 2010, Nabil Sadoun, a former board member for CAIR, was deported and accused by the government of also having ties to Hamas.

"This group has a bunch of leaders with proven ties to terrorism and particularly terrorist fundraising," Kevin Calvey, 5th district congressional candidate, said.

Calvey has teamed up with the newly formed group Oklahoman's Against Care Hate in an effort to condemn CAIR.

"The proof is some of their members are in jail and now this latest former leader is sent to Jordan, that says they are involved in terrorism," Cindy Crenshaw with Oklahoman's Against Care Hate said.

Neither local nor national CAIR leaders wanted to respond to the latest allegations of terrorist ties but the organizations national communications director did.

"They [Oklahoman's Against Care Hate] are free to be bigots if they want but I have better things to do then to engage them and enable their bigotry."

Which is something Calvey said is just another attempt by CAIR to dodge the terrorist ties.

"The record is out there, it's just a matter of people becoming aware of this group," Calvey said.

Because of the case where CAIR was named an un-indicted co-conspirator as well as the organizations failure to answer questions about a connection between their board members and Hamas, the FBI has suspended a formal partnership with CAIR.

There have been no known terrorist allegations made specifically to CAIR's Oklahoma City chapter.

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