Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye dealt directly with Osama bin Laden.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The FBI announced that a joint investigation by its agents and those of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prompted the government’s decision to try revoke the citizenship of the imam who leads Portland, Oregon’s largest mosque.
Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye raised money, recruited fighters and provided training for insurgent groups battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland, reported the Associated Press.
Court papers filed Monday in Portland show that Justice Department officials hope to commence with the denaturalization of the Somali-born imam’s citizenship because he allegedly tried to conceal past associations with Islamic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, reported Oregon Live.
The immigration complaint does not include criminal charges, but government attorneys claim Kariye “dealt directly” with Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, the founders of al-Qaida, and he recruited sympathizers in the United States and Pakistan for an al-Qaida precursor known as Maktab Al-Khidamat.
Kariye is also accused of being a founding officer and director of the now-defunct Global Relief Foundation, which authorities say provided assistance to terror groups including al-Qaida and promoted radical jihad.
Per an official FBI news release:
The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing Mr. [Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman] Kariye’s denaturalization based on his illegal procurement of naturalization; specifically, Mr. Kariye obtained his U.S. citizenship by providing false information and willful misrepresentation and concealment of material facts including his criminal history and failed to establish that he was a person of good moral character during the requisite statutory period,” the FBI wrote in a news statement. “Due to the ongoing legal proceedings, no further information is available at this time.
Kariye, whose father was one of Somalia’s most popular imams, is the head of Masjed As-Saber in Southwest Portland.