FBI: "A Muslim does not record another Muslim"

[abu afak]

THE FBI FUMBLES

By DANIEL PIPES


March 14, 2003 -- AS an FBI agent, Gamal Abdel-Hafiz could have a key role helping America's premier anti-terrorist force protect the United States from harm.
But evidence from high-profile terrorism cases suggests that Abdel-Hafiz, an immigrant Muslim, twice refused on principle to tape-record his coreligionists, harming the investigations.

The first case concerns a now-defunct Secaucus, N.J.-based Islamic investment bank called BMI Inc. Founded in 1985, it was financed by known terrorists and by members of the bin Laden family. The FBI got a break in 1999, when a BMI accountant contacted it and relayed his suspicions that $2.1 million in BMI funds "may have been used" to finance Al-Qaeda's twin bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in August 1998.

When the president of BMI - a Muslim - learned of this communication, he contacted Abdel-Hafiz to ask for a meeting. On a conference call in April 1999, an assistant U.S. attorney dealing with the BMI case, Mark Flessner, encouraged Abdel-Hafiz to meet the BMI president and clandestinely record their discussion.

Abdel-Hafiz refused. Why? "I fear for my life." But you have FBI protection, Flessner pointed out. No, Abdel-Hafiz scornfully replied: "The FBI can't protect me. The FBI, I don't trust them."

Pressed further, Abdel-Hafiz blurted out another reason, one recalled by several participants on the call:

* "I do not record another Muslim. That is against my religion" (Flessner).

* "A Muslim does not record another Muslim" (Robert Wright, FBI agent).

* He "wouldn't have any problems interviewing or recording somebody who wasn't a Muslim, but he could never record another Muslim" (John Vincent, FBI agent).

Robert Wright informed a supervisor at FBI headquarters about this conversation and met with indifference: "Well, you have to understand where he's coming from, Bob." When ABC News inquired about Abdel-Hafiz's statement, the FBI bureaucracy exonerated him by saying that the clandestine recording would have taken place in a mosque. But this was a falsehood (there was no mosque involved) which the FBI later acknowledged and retracted.

The second case concerns Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor recently indicted for his role financing and running the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Al-Arian had been under criminal investigation for years; at one point, he met Abdel- Hafiz at a conference and pressed for details about his case.

Abdel-Hafiz's then-colleague, Barry Carmody, says that he asked Abdel-Hafiz to learn more from Al-Arian by secretly recording a conversation with him. Abdel-Hafiz refused: He would make the call, but not record it.

Wright reports another problem with Abdel-Hafiz: Agents at the FBI's Washington field office wrote of his "contacting subjects of their investigations and not disclosing these contacts" to the special agents running those cases.

Carmody's repeated complaints about Abdel-Hafiz went nowhere. Worse, FBI headquarters promoted Abdel-Hafiz in February 2001 by sending him to terrorism central - to a sensitive, important, and prestigious posting at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Which makes one wonder: In a country whose nationals are close to 100 percent Muslim, did Abdel-Hafiz continue his practice of incompletely investigating anyone who is Muslim?

Apparently he did continue, for there is now a special inspection underway into the Riyadh embassy's failure to actively pursue counterterrorism leads. And the FBI just days ago returned Abdel-Hafiz to the United States, put him on administrative leave and (according to Fox News) asked the Justice Department's much-feared Office of Professional Responsibility to review his conduct. (Among other things, that office investigates "allegations of misconduct by law enforcement personnel.")

Special Agent Abdel-Hafiz's actions raise some urgent and important questions:

* What was the true reason for his alleged unwillingness to record conversations with fellow-Muslims - a misguided sense of religious solidarity or a real fear for his life?

* Does Abdel-Hafiz sympathize with or support militant Islam?

* Is he the FBI's only Muslim employee whose religious bonds apparently trump the requirements of his office not to show favor?

* Did the FBI ignore a breach of oath by Abdel-Hafiz?

* Did the FBI reward misbehavior with a plum assignment?

* Did the FBI bureaucracy lie to cover up its mistakes? If so, does this fit a more general pattern?

* Is the FBI punishing Robert Wright, its whistleblower who bravely went public with this story?

* And when will the FBI permit Wright to speak freely about these matters?

Until FBI Director Robert Mueller fully answers these questions, Americans cannot rest assured that his agency is doing all possible to protect them.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/op...ists/70708.htm

[andak01]

Originally posted by abu afak
[B]* What was the true reason for his alleged unwillingness to record conversations with fellow-Muslims - a misguided sense of religious solidarity or a real fear for his life?

Fear of his life would be pretty valid. People get killed for a lot less than cooperating with the FBI to put away terrorists. That's why the ones that do are considered heroes whether they are Muslims or Sicilians. The FBI was helpless to save the lives of the victims of WTC.

* Does Abdel-Hafiz sympathize with or support militant Islam?

That is a second entirely possible scenario. And it could also be a mix of that and the first point.

* Is he the FBI's only Muslim employee whose religious bonds apparently trump the requirements of his office not to show favor?

Religious bonds, support of terrorism, fear or some of each.

* Did the FBI ignore a breach of oath by Abdel-Hafiz?

I don't know. Did they ever have an informant turn on them before, or is it only the Muslims that do that?

* Did the FBI reward misbehavior with a plum assignment?

That's a definite yes, since none of the people that overlooked warnings relating to 9/11 have been publicly dismissed.

* Did the FBI bureaucracy lie to cover up its mistakes? If so, does this fit a more general pattern?

Shocking.

* Is the FBI punishing Robert Wright, its whistleblower who bravely went public with this story?

* And when will the FBI permit Wright to speak freely about these matters?[/quote]

Abu, do you wish to speak freely of these matters? Or are we to leave it at the mere suggestion that these Muslim types can't be trusted? And do you have anything to back up that implication. It shouldn't be difficult to find two examples, as litterally hundreds of thousands if not millions of Muslims have been questioned, and some tortured in the quest to stop terrorism. I don't doubt that some of them feel closer to the terrorists than those that interrogate them, while others are happy to share whatever they can to stop this continued defamation of our religion.

[MichaelC]

This man should be immediately ousted from the FBI. He is not fit to be an agent. Whether he is too lacking in courage or too loyal to Islam, he is not FBI material.

[humus_sapiens]

Originally posted by andak01
...are we to leave it at the mere suggestion that these Muslim types can't be trusted?

If his loyalty to _whatever_ beliefs precede (and collide with) his direct job functions, he chose the wrong line of work. And if all "these Muslim types " have similar problems, this puts them on the other side of the fence.

to stop this continued defamation of our religion.

Then maybe "millions of shahids" would save it from unjustified "continued defamation"? Sometimes it is hard to distinguish a real/peaceful/tolerant Muslim from the unreal/bad kind. Especially when it gets to fighting or even publicly speaking against terror.

But don't worry, they can be heard loud and clear when there's even a shadow of concern for their rights or "continued defamation" on the net. The victims of Islam must know: the Islamic terrorists are only human, and share with them 99.99% of the DNA. <sigh of relief>. Very helpful.

[elke]

I think it's fairly obvious that there are ample "Muslim types" in the FBI, CIA, and other such institutions - honorably discharging their duties and doing what they can to protect all of us. That's not the issue - and it shouldn't become one.

What is at issue here is whether this particular person has chosen the right field to be in: if he is afraid for his life, which is a legitimate fear, - he really ought not be an FBI agent to begin with. FBI agents put their life on the line all the time, since everyone they deal with is a serious criminal.

Since we have to presume that he is an adult who passed the psychological testing of being of sound mind, he should be investigated for any ties with militants, since his excuse does not make sense on its face: he is not expected to "tell" on people who are normal, whose interests are religious and philantropic; but rather on someone who is a danger to the society he swore to protect.

[andak01]

Originally posted by MichaelC
This man should be immediately ousted from the FBI. He is not fit to be an agent. Whether he is too lacking in courage or too loyal to Islam, he is not FBI material.

I would have no problem with that. The FBI operates under its own set of rules. I think the real question is whether he felt he was acting Islamically by refusing to cooperate. That may also relate to his own assessment of the guilt of the parties he was asked to investigate. Once again, this is dismissable behavior, but I'm sure that officers do on occasion ease off the pressure on suspects they feel are not guilty.

One thing that should be understood here is that many Middle Easterners, because the information they are fed is quite different from our own, come to quite different conclusions. I still on occasion (rare occasion) meet people who do not believe that Bin Laden is in any way connected with 9/11. Based on a diet of Middle East media, they think that all the videos of him were orchestrated by the CIA, and that he is being hunted for things he didn't do. Now we may say that they are terribly innacurate in their views, but in effect it changes the nature of their intentions. They do not believe that by refusing to give him up, they are abbetting a bloodthirsty killer. They see him simply as someone fighting for Palestine and standing up to America.

Humus
The victims of Islam must know: the Islamic terrorists are only human, and share with them 99.99% of the DNA. <sigh of relief>. Very helpful.

The methods of terrorists are common whether they are Tamil Tigers or Hamas. Also, the methods for investigation and preventing terrorist acts are independant of religion. And further, we don't chase after these people BECAUSE they are Muslim, but because they are terrorists. So treating this issue as a war against terrorism instead of a Crusade against Islam is likely to result in a lot more support from the Islamic community.