Groups call for independent investigation of FBI actions

Several rights groups continue to speak out against the FBI’s fatal shooting of the leader of a Detroit Muslim community on October 28.

Omar Regan, the son of slain Detroit Muslim leader Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, embraces a family member. PHOTO: Pan-African News Wire

The National Lawyers Guild, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, the Michigan Green Party and several other progressive and Muslim advocacy groups have called for an independent investigation into the incident.
“All reports from local residents and community leaders indicate that Imam (Luqman) Abdullah and mosque members were dedicated to improving the community, feeding hungry neighborhood residents and helping young people in need,” the National Lawyers Guild said in a release.

The FBI raided a Dearborn warehouse and two Detroit homes Oct. 28, killing Luqman and arresting several members of what law enforcement called a radical Muslim group and criminal operation.

The FBI said it was the culmination of a two-year undercover investigation and released a 45-page complaint that quoted Luqman frequently speaking of revolution and anti-law enforcement rhetoric. The complaint, based on information from confidential sources referred to only as S-1, S-2 and S-3, said the group was armed and that members wore bulletproof vests.

Luqman Abdullah

“We condemn this FBI raid and murder of an innocent man,” said Green Party of Michigan Chair Fred Vatale. “The FBI fails even today to bring charges of terrorism against the other people arrested. Rather it and the corporate media make wild accusations; their only witnesses unreliable former criminal informants, dependent on the FBI for food and freedom. It appears that the only charges are those associated with petty crime, and even these were instigated by government agents and grinding poverty.”
Charges against 11 men in the case included illegal possession and sale of firearms, theft from interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, and tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office said the group wanted to “establish a separate sharia-law governed state within the United States.”

Over 1,000 people attended Abdullah’s funeral and those who knew him or lived in the neighborhood have characterized the group differently.

“Look, I don’t care about what my father said,” Abdullah’s son Mujahid Carswell told Huffington Post writer Hamdan Azhar. “People say stuff all the time. What did he do? He fed the people every Sunday for 30 years.”

Carswell was also charged in the case for conspiracy to commit federal crimes.

Another son, Omar Regan, told Azhar “This is character assassination. They want to say Muslims are terrorists so they can look justified in doing what they’re doing. All they have to do is sway public opinion. People say, ‘I seen it on TV’, and they believe it… My father wanted a decent neighborhood, without liquor stores, drugs, gangs, and violence. He wanted children to grow up in a good environment… There were Muslims of every race, of every denomination [at Abdallah’s funeral] There were Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, atheists, men, women, and children… The funeral procession stretched for four miles.”

Most accounts of the raid in Dearborn include Abdullah being shot 18 times and left for dead while a wounded police dog was flown to medical care in a helicopter.

Dawud Walid, head of the Council of Islamic Relations in Michigan, said at Abdullah’s funeral that when the imam refused to get on the ground at the demand of FBI agents at the warehouse, a police dog was sent to attack him. Walid said Abdullah then removed a firearm and shot at the dog, and that agents then shot the imam 18 times.

Detroit FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena would not confirm or deny details of the shooting.

“At this point I can’t confirm or deny anything,” Arena said. “There is an independent review team looking at the matter, and the information collected is not shared with me until their report is complete. I would only be speculating and possibly make matters worse.”

Imam Abdullah El-Amin, of the Muslim Center in Detroit, where the funeral was held, is a funeral director and prepared Luqman Abdullah’s body for burial.

“Imam Abdullah had multiple, multiple, multiple gunshot wounds to his body, El-Amin said, according to Pan-African News Wire.

Azhar, who visited Abdullah’s neighborhood to speak to random residents about Abdullah, spoke to one 77-year old Baptist man walking along Joy Road named Al who echoed the sentiments of most others familiar with the imam and his Masjid Al-Haqq mosque.

“They f****** shot someone who fed kids, that’s what they did,” the man said, becoming emotional. “They were afraid of him and they killed him.”