Cleveland Imam Linked to PIJ is Deported
By Bill West
Fawaz Damra, the Cleveland Imam convicted in 2004 of lying on his naturalization documents about his links to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other radical Islamists, and who subsequently had his naturalized US citizenship revoked, was deported the other day to the Palestinian Territories after a complex and difficult prosecution effort by the US Government.
So ends (for now) a long saga of PIJ-related terror support in the US with this individual, who was directly linked to PIJ-supporter Sami Al-Arian as well as the Brooklyn mosque from where the first World Trade Center bombers hailed. The deportation sends a message that dogged, determined effort by fearless and skilled law enforcement and prosecution professionals in terrorism related cases pays off. A special note of recognition should go to Federal prosecutor Cherie Krigsman, who obtained the felony criminal indictment against Damra just days before the statute of limitations expired and who oversaw the difficult prosecution through to a successful conclusion. Without her recognition of the case potential and foresight in pursuing the prosecution, Damra would be walking the streets of America a free man.
That said, it is doubtful any of this justice would have happened to Damra had it not also been for the original ground-breaking investigative journalism done on PIJ support in the US by Steven Emerson, now Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and Michael Fechter of the Tampa Tribune, those many years ago in the mid-1990s. Identification, prosecution, conviction and, when appropriate, deportation...it works if the good guys and gals stick with it and believe in what they are doing!
Congratulations to all those involved in bringing this case to closure.
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