Florida, May 23: Supporters of a detained Muslim cleric who leads Miami’s oldest mosque are expressing shock at accusations from US authorities of collecting and sending funds to radical Taliban activists based in Pakistan.
The elderly imam, 76-year-old Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, pleaded not guilty in US federal court to charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban and was ordered held without bail. About a hundred supporters who filled the mosque for Friday prayers dismissed the charges as falsehoods.
The US government accuses him, four of his relatives and another person of funneling money and providing support to the group branded by Washington as a foreign terror group.
Samad Nassirnia, an Iranian-born math teacher and a regular at the mosque, said he knew the imam well and refused to believe the charges.
“Sheikh Khan has nothing to do with politics,” Nassirnia told AFP. “He is not a political person at all. He is a spiritual leader.”
He said Khan has operated a school in Pakistan since the 1970s attended by 200 girls, 34 boys and many children orphaned as a result of the war in Afghanistan.
“So he has been sending them money, legal money,” Nassirnia said. “It is legal to send money overseas… This situation is very, very bad. Our community has lost this great person and our spiritual leader.”
The FBI claims claim the imam and his five co-accusers sent about $50,000 over the past three years to the school in Pakistan, which US investigators say is a madrassa religious school that espouses extremist views and teaches children to kill American soldiers.
“It is not too much money,” said Nassirnia. “If you think just about teachers’ salaries and the need to feed the children for three years, this is very, very little money.”
The Pakistani Taliban, which is engaged in a violent resistance against the Pakistani and US governments, operates a network of religious schools in the country. It also has links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
One of Khan’s sons, 24-year-old Izhar Khan, also appeared in court for the first time since their indictment was unsealed. He is an imam at another Florida mosque.
The six defendants are all Pakistanis, although some have US citizenship.
The indictment unveiled last week names the older Khan, two sons (Irfan and Izhar Khan), daughter Amina Khan, grandson Alam Zeb and another individual, Ali Rehman.
The arrests and charges against the Pakistanis come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Islamabad following a US commando raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout deep in Pakistan.
Mohammed Doseri, born in Miami to Saudi parents, said he was shocked by the news of the imam’s arrest but agreed he should be punished if guilty.
“I don’t think he is a bad person and I hope he will be freed,” said Doseri. “If he is guilty, he will have to pay for what he did. The Taliban are terrorists, they brain-wash people.”
A substitute preacher who conducted Friday prayers said the charges were false.
“Today we pray for our sheikh and for all those who, having not committed any crime, are in jail,” he told the faithful, urging them to help raise $10,000 for their imprisoned leader’s legal defense. “We pray for his prompt release.”
A Jordanian vendor who sells socks and women’s perfume from a stall outside the mosque and only gave his first name Mahmud, compared Khan’s situation to that of US civil rights leaders in the 1960s.
“Some time ago, in the United States, black people were discriminated against,” he said. “Now the Muslims are. People are afraid when they come here, everybody feels persecuted.”
He insisted the Quran, the Muslim holy book was not just for the Muslims, but for all people.
“If you could read the Quran in your language and understand it, you would cry for what you would feel,” added Mahmud.
-Agencies