Imam Ibrahim Dremali Arrested: Dremali and Safaa Rashad Eissa Arrested

Imam Ibrahim Dremali and his wife Safaa Rashad Eissa were arrested in Texas on charges of Immigration Fraud. Dremali is also known as Ibrahim Abdelrahman Dremali. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent an email plea to American Muslims saying that Dremali is "one of a small handful of people who hold Ph.D.s in the U.S. in Islamic Jurisprudence." In other words, he has a "deep understanding of Sharia - meaning Dremali clearly understands the Islamic mission of Sharia dominance worldwide. 10-19-10 Update below. Another pertinent update 10-20-10 below

Ibrahim Abdelrahman Dremali

 Creeping Sharia reports that CAIR, through the mass email, has asked Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) to have the charges dropped. Harken is likely at his home office while the Senate is in campaign mode. His Iowa office phone in Des Mones: 515-284-4574, Fax: 515-284-4937 and in Washington, D.C. 202-224-3254 and Fax: 202-224-9369. Something we can do is contact Senator Harkin's office and tell him to not even think of dropping the charges against this couple. Read on for good reasons to see this through to the end of a trial. Let their public defender defend them.

From The Iowa Independent:

Imam Ibrahim Dremali and his wife, Safaa Rashad Eissa, were arrested at their Arlington, Texas, home on Oct. 6 by local and federal agents acting on a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. According to the warrant, Dremali and his wife are suspected of conspiracy and fraud in [the] naturalization process, an immigration offense...

Apparently, Safaa Rashad Eissa is not Ibrahim's other wife, Lamyaa Hashim (a.k.a. Um Ahmad), or perhaps she changed her name, or maybe there was an Islamic divorce. From FrontPageMag's The Visiting Jihadist in 2006:

Ibrahim Dremali was educated at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where the school’s Grand Imam, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, has issued Fatwas in favor of violent Jihad against America and in support of suicide bombings.  It is at Al-Azhar that Dremali was said to have been indoctrinated into a militant organization.  This gives historical context for an event that happened on July 1, 1996, during which Dremali was detained by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and told that he was not to leave Gazaindefinitely.  Subsequently, on July 5, 1996, against Israeli orders, he arrived in Cairo.

Dremali would soon make his way to sunny Florida, where he resided previous to the IDF incident.

Update 10-19-10: 
Addressing the mass email, this says that Dremali is known to Senator Harkin, who has appeared with Dremali and supported his work in the past.

From The Investigative Project on Terrorism:

Dremali founded the Islamic Center of Boca Raton before becoming an imam in Des Moines. While in Florida, his mosque co-sponsored a rally in 2000 which featured Hizballah flags and chants of "with jihad we'll claim our land. Zionist blood will wet the sand."

In addition, Dremali testified on behalf of Adham Amin Hassoun during a 2002 bond hearing, attesting to Hassoun's "peaceful and generous" character. Hassoun would later be indictedfor "actively recruiting mujahideen fighters and raising funds for violent jihad" and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim persons in a foreign country," in order to "advance violent jihad," including "murder, kidnapping, and maiming," to establish "Islamic states under Sharia."

Hassoun was convicted in 2007.

The Islamic Center of Boca Raton, which Dremali founded has quite a reputation, according to FrontPageMag:

From October of 1999 through July of 2001, the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR) contained material on its website calling Jews “people of treachery and betrayal” and discussing the murder of Jews. A founding director of ICBR, Syed Khawer Ahmad, who stayed on in his position till the middle of 2002, doubled as a webmaster for the official website of Hamas’s Islamic Association located in Gaza. In October of 2000, the Imam of ICBR, Ibrahim Dremali, amidst burning Israeli flags and shouts that “Zionist blood will wet the sand,” told a crowd not to be sad for “those who were martyred” (i.e., suicide bombers). Despite this history, the ICBR had no trouble securing a zoning permit for a proposed 9,000 square-foot mosque. No one -- not the police department, not the mayor’s office, not the zoning board -- raised an objection.

What transpired after the permit was given is a matter of record. A Hamas-related charity connected to ICBR, the Health Resource Center for Palestine, was shut down; a founding director of ICBR and associate of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami Al-Arian, Bassem Alhalabi, was charged by the U.S. government with illegally shipping a $13,000 piece of sensitive military equipment to Syria; the Imam that took the place of Dremali, Munir Arafat, admitted under oath that he himself was a member of PIJ; and a member of the center, Rafiq Sabir, was arrested by the FBI for being an Al-Qaeda operative, to which he is currently awaiting trial.

Apparently, Dremali has spread his jihad to the Austin, Texas area. DiscoverTheNetworks says Dremali was the Director of the Islamic Center of Greater Austin, and a professor at the American Open University.

Call Senator Harkin's office, as well as alert your own Senator and Congressmen that CAIR is once again at work to whitewash a jhadist living in the U.S.

Update 10-20-10: 
Shawn Savage at Savage Infidel via DallasNews
Dremali and Eissa are accused of marrying other people to provide U.S. citizenship. Islamic websites are tsk, tsk, tsking that Dremali is suffering from cancer and should not be moved, but according to this report, it's not cancer, it's hepatitis C. He is awaiting a liver transplant from a red-blooded American's demise.


Linked by The Iowa Independent

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook