Cleveland Imam’s Citizenship Revoked
Fawaz Damra, the imam of the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland, has had his citizenship stripped away for his ties to terrorism: Judge pulls Damra citizenship. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)
A federal judge Thursday stripped the citizenship of convicted Muslim leader Imam Fawaz Damra, setting in motion what could be years of fighting over his deportation.
Federal prosecutors assured Damra that they would hold off on the deportation proceedings and not detain him until after the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decides the imam’s appellate case. Deportation proceedings cannot begin until the 6th Circuit decides his appeal, the judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge James Gwin made the citizenship ruling three days after he sentenced Damra to two months in prison and four months of home confinement for hiding his ties to terror. Damra must report to prison Nov. 22, after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
How considerate! The Imam will be allowed to celebrate Ramadan before reporting to prison. Would Fawaz Damra be this sensitive if the situation were reversed, and he held the power?
Damra was convicted in June of lying on his immigration forms in 1993. Damra failed to mention his links to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the imam knew other radicals. He came to the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland in 1991.
In tapes of various meetings that were played at his trial, Damra screeches to a crowd about the need to raise money to kill Jews in the West Bank. Damra said in one tape that Palestinians must “direct all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews.”