One of the more interesting development that has come out of the Riqa Bary dependency trial thus far is the meticulously footnoted 35 page memorandum submitted to the Florida court by Rifqa's attorney, John Stemberger, concerning the Bary family mosque in Ohio, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center. According to Rifqa's affidavit, individuals from the mosque had reported her Christian faith to her father and the mosque leaders ordered him to get his daughter "in line", leading to the threats her parents have admitted to that prompted her to flee to Florida. Her affidavit also documents the Bary's families activity with the Noor Center.
We've reported on the Noor mosque previously, but there are important elements to the Stemberger memo worth additional attention concerns the head of the mosque, Hany Saqr, who is identified on the Noor website as the "founder, spiritual leader, administrator and chairman" of the mosque.
Saqr's name came up during the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial (which resulted in convictions against the defendants on all counts) as one of the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in North America. Specifically, he was identified in a 1992 Muslim Brotherhood phone directory entered into evidence by the Department of Justice as a member of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Eastern region "masul" for the group. The image below (taken from the illustrated memo on the Florida Security Council's website) shows the cover of the directory and Hany Saqr's name listed on the board of directors page: (Note: click on title above to see this full picture)
We'll wait and see if his supporters show up in the comments to deny this.
In the next few days we will have more info on Dr. Saqr, but for anyone who isn't familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood, we would recommend this 2004 Chicago Tribune article as an intro into the terrorist ties of the organization (that also came up during the Holy Land Foundation trial) and the secretive nature of their operations in the US. Stay tuned for more!
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