The Investigative Project is reporting that a former Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) president and secretary general is under federal investigation regarding his past ties to a paramilitary group in his home country. According to the report:
A former Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) president and secretary general is under federal investigation to determine whether he failed to disclose his history with a paramilitary group when he applied for U.S. naturalization. Ashrafuzzaman Khan remains active with ICNA, which was founded to serve South Asian Muslims in the U.S. and follows the extremist ideology of the Jamaat-i-Islami, which advocates for revolution to create an Islamist state in Pakistan. According to an online Bangladesh newspaper based in Washington, U.S officials wrote to Bangladesh’s State Minister for Home Affairs in September requesting files related to Khan’s role in a series of 1971 political murders. The bloodshed came during Bangladesh’s fight for independence. The targets included university professors and a journalist. Khan is suspected of war crimes and of carrying out some of the killings. According to the News Bangla report:”Ashrafuzzaman Khan’s personal diary found in his residence contained the names of more than twenty Dhaka University teachers and staff. Also, the diary contained the names of a few other intellectuals who were either killed or who went missing in 1971.” Allegations about his role in the Bangladesh murders have dogged Khan for years. The government won’t have to prove his guilt in order to try to strip him of his citizenship. It only must show he lied on his application forms when asked to list his past organizational connections. It has worked before.The DOJ official making the request is Eli Rosenbaum, longtime director of the department’s Office of Special Investigations who hunted Nazi war criminals in the U.S., often using deportation as a tool to send the accused back to their home countries to face justice.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is a less well-known part of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S., generally thought to be closely tied to the Jamaat-e-Islami organization of Southeast Asia, itself known to be allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. ICNA is particularly close to the Muslim American Society and the two organizations have been holding joint annual conventions for many years. Previous posts have discussed ICNA ad campaigns intended to present Islam to the U.S. public. The New York campaign drew national media attention when it was reported that Siraj Wahajj, an American Islamic convert associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was behind the New York campaign.