Extremist Imam Tests F.B.I. and the Limits of the Law
By SCOTT SHANE and ADAM GOLDMANSEPT. 30, 2016
Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa in a still image from one of his YouTube videos. Credit via YouTube
WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa has served as a Muslim cleric in Maryland, working as a prison chaplain and as an imam at mosques in Annapolis and outside Baltimore. He gave a two-week course in 2011 on Islamic teachings on marriage at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, where President Obama made a much-publicized visit this year.
But in the last two years, Imam Bengharsa’s public pronouncements have taken a dark turn. On Facebook, he has openly endorsed the Islamic State, posted gruesome videos showing ISIS fighters beheading and burning alive their enemies and praised terrorist attacks overseas. The “Islamic Jurisprudence Center” website he set up last year has condemned American mosques as un-Islamic and declared that homosexual acts should be punished by death.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/us/maryland-imam-fbi-suleiman-anwar-bengharsa.html?_r=0
