A Muslim intellectual chosen to utter at President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural entreaty utilization Wednesday is the gaffer of a group that federal prosecutors announce has ties to terrorists. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, is one of many churchgoing leaders scheduled to discourse at the plea service at Washington's National Cathedral. Mattson has been the roomer of honor at State Department dinners and has met with chief Pentagon officials during the Bush administration.
She also spoke at a obsecration secondment at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Mattson, who was elected president of the league in 2006, is a professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. But in 2007 and as recently as behind July, federal prosecutors in Dallas filed court documents linking the Plainfield, Ind.-based Islamic circle to the dispose Hamas, which the U.S. considers a bomber organization.
Neither Mattson nor her framework have been charged. But prosecutors wrote in July that they had "a to one side array of recommendation and documentary sign absolutely linking" the bring to Hamas and other out-and-out groups. Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama's inaugural committee, would not argue the container or voice whether the board knew about it. "She has a starring status in the consecration community," Douglass said Saturday night.
The presence of the court documents was cardinal reported by Politico. The Islamic Society of North America, which describes itself as "the nation's largest mainstream Muslim community-based organization," is fighting its numbering on a enumerate of coconspirators in the Dallas terrorism event against the Holy Land Foundation. In court documents, Mattson's organize says it does not condone terrorism. The court documents state a elaborate drawing of the group. Law enforcement agencies have Euphemistic pre-owned the organization's annual council as cause of its outreach to the Muslim community.
The league has provided devout training to the FBI, according to court documents. Karen Hughes, a recent Bush confidant and under secretary of state, called Mattson "a wonderful superior and character image for many, many people." All this was succeeding on while officials in the axiom enforcement and brainpower community evidently had denote that the Islamic Society of North America had ties to terrorists and to the Holy Land Foundation.
That grounds and five of its ex- leaders were convicted at a retrial in November of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Mark Pelavin, boss of inter-religious affairs for the Union for Reform Judaism _ another assembly participating in the orison handling _ called Mattson "a in effect high-level air denouncing terrorism." "Clearly, Dr. Mattson has been freely permitted throughout the government," he said. "I haven't found anyone anywhere who's found anything Dr.
Mattson has said that's anything other than definitely denouncing terrorism in actually specific Islamic terms." Pelavin's circle has a partnership with the Islamic Society to hearten members of mosques and synagogues to figure ties nationwide. Attorneys for Mattson's congregation wrote in court documents that it is not a liegeman or object of the Holy Land investigation. The organization has worked with the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, according to court documents. According to e-mails filed in the court case, one of the prosecutors seemed ready to entreat the critic to carry away the series from the list.
"I am abject for the problems for your clients," Assistant U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks wrote in July 2007.
"I longing to get something to you or place in order something with the court as soon as possible." The Islamic Society helps classify Muslim chaplains for federal prisons. Mattson leads a program at the Hartford Seminary that trains Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.
Mattson was one of about three dozen leaders, including quondam Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and two preceding Republican congressmen, Vin Weber and Steve Bartlett, who developed a publish released form ruin on how the U.S. can fall out extremism in the Muslim world. ___ AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.
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