Posted on 12/28/2004 5:34:02 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - An Orange County mosque leader from Egypt who authorities said had given speeches that could be considered supportive of terrorist organizations agreed Tuesday to leave the United States voluntarily, giving up his fight to remain in the country.
As part of the agreement with government attorneys, Wagdy Ghoneim avoids deportation in exchange for admitting he was in the United States in violation of his immigration status, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement.
He must leave the United States by Jan. 7. By agreeing to voluntary removal, Ghoneim, the imam at the Islamic Institute of Orange County, is eligible to reapply for entry into the country.
Ghoneim, 53, was arrested at his Anaheim home last month on an immigration violation, but authorities had declined to disclose details about the case.
At the time, his lawyer and supporters said the arrest was a mistake and that he expected to be released soon.
Ghoneim has been held without bond since then "based upon Department of Homeland Security concerns that his past speeches and participation in fund-raising activities could be supportive of terrorist organizations," Kice said, declining to provide further details.
Attorneys for Ghoneim did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday.
His agreement to leave the country comes a day after Southern California Muslims met with Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, to protest his detention.
About two dozen Muslims presented a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to Cox, urging him to investigate the arrest of a man described by local Islamic leaders as a respected scholar.
Ghoneim, a native of Egypt, arrived in Detroit in 2001 on a visitor's visa. He was later authorized to remain in the United States on a visa for religious workers until June 20, 2004, according to documents provided to his attorney by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
His attorney has said that Ghoneim applied for an extension of his visa and was awaiting word from immigration authorities on whether he would be allowed to remain in the United States when federal agents arrested him.
Good bye to bad rubish.
Well..at least they got one.
Exile is better than jail or execution. He can continue to plot and scheme, but he can't do it here.
One down..about 2 million MORE to go..
Auto accident would have been better.
None of these scumbags has a "right" to be in this country. Get 'e,m all the hell out.
Torture for a few months, then auto accident!!!
Let him head west and then start swimming.
That gives us another 1024 names to put on the watch list! Check'em out, then ship'em out!!!
Auto accident---or he gets dumped out of a plane
;-)
What the heck was he doing here anyway? Good riddance to bad rubbish! All these imams seem to always be working at Islamic Centers or Islamic Institutes, which are euphemisms for terroritst training centers!
No problemo. His buddies at the State Dept. will arrange for him to be back in no time. Mark my words.
There's more than one jihadist in that Anaheim mosque. They should root them all out.
Its a start.
That sounds like at least 1,024 pending investigattions, assuming we're f**king serious about the "War On Terror"
Damn right....I am not that far away .....
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Ghonie!
Dude, I was totally going to say that. Except I was going to add "...hit your ass..."
Is this a different mosque than the one Adam Gadahn and Saraah Olson were associated with?
One imam at an Islamic Center fingered a radical that had been attending his Center. A local news channel showed the imam verifying that a taped message from Ghadahn(a convert to Islam) was indeed the same radical that had gone astray and went to Pakistan. The imam was criticized by some as having been "Americanized".
Relatives of Ghadahn refused to recognize him as the same man that made the tape calling for 'blood on American streets'. The tape showed the man's face masked by a cloth, but the imam recognized him by his voice and gestures.
There's a followup story related to this at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308240/posts
They've gotten far more than one. I was watching the history channel and they had a special on Al-Qaeda. They showed how parts of the Patriot Act allowed them to investigate charities and identify some of the "sleeper cells" that were funneling money to terrorists. Gosh, the Mosque leaders they jailed in Brooklyn were admittedly funneling money to Hamas.
There was also a segment on how they got the Swiss to help track down some terrorist that was communicating with some special encrypted card in a phone cell that the Swiss later found a way to track.
The scary part on the history channel was the segment on Al-Qaeda's Navy. They showed how terrorists could use the internet to misportray their vessel identification and sneak into the ports. Fortunately, they also showed agents working to infiltrate/screen the computers to look for altered data prior to port entry.
Our ports, especially in Los Angeles and San Francisco are under close scrutiny by the Coast Guard, but they said that some of the terrorists could disguise their vessels to appear as fishing vessels (in the same way many drugs are smuggled in through the ports).
DUH, I watched a debate for the Los Angeles Mayor race on a local public channel earlier this week. The candidates were discussing the added pollution the port inspections are causing (vessels with cargo idling and waiting truckers at the docks are using more diesel causing more pollution).
That wasn't a mosque that Gadahn attended; It was an Islamic Society which seems to have an imam that is cooperating in pointing out radicals:
(from the link that I posted at #24 about the Olson story:
"ABC-TV reported that her story was confirmed in detail by the Imam of the Islamic Society of Orange County, Haitham Bundakji.
Bundakji said Diab and the others in the cell were disruptive troublemakers who caused the most harm by recruiting others, especially Gadahn."
Yes. That is an older mosque in Garden Grove. It is muslim but largely non arab Sunnis. The mosque in Anaheim is Wahabi.
Good, PUNK! Take all the rest of the trash with you when you go.
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