CAIR SILENT ON EX-BOARD MEMBER'S DEPORTATION

Ibrahim Hooper is chief Spin-meister for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and not only is he conspicuously silent with respect to the deportation of one-time CAIR Board member Nabil Sadoun but so is the attorney for Sadoun that Hooper referred Dallas Morning News reporter Brooks Egerton to.

Quoting from Egerton's report at DMN:

When I asked national CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper for an interview, he responded with this e-mail: "Peace. Perhaps speak to his attorney. She is the best source of information on the case." Hooper did not respond when I followed up with written questions about CAIR's view of the deportation case and its relationship with Sadoun.

Sadoun's attorney, Kimberly Kinser of Richardson, didn't respond to my phone call and e-mail.

It may be a little early to celebrate media courage but CAIR seems to be increasingly on defense lately. It is still claiming that it was unfairly tied to the Holy Land Foundation trial as an unindicted co-conspirator. I blogged about this here. Egerton points out that Sadoun helped found a group with ties to Hamas.

Federal authorities say Sadoun, when applying for an immigrant visa in 1993, failed to disclose his role in founding the United Association for Studies and Research, my Dallas Morning News colleague Jason Trahan reports. The FBI says the UASR, based in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and now defunct, was formed to benefit Hamas.

The U.S. later designated Hamas a terrorist organization because of its support for suicide bombings against Israel.

Former leaders of UASR include a top Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzook, who is wanted on terrorism charges in the U.S. and believed to be in Syria; and Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is imprisoned in this country on a 2004 terrorism financing conviction related to a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince.

For more on the UASR, click here.

Read the entire DMN piece too.