An imam of an organization affiliated with an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror case is scheduled to be part of a panel on Wednesday at the U.S. State Department’s second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C.
Mohamed Magid, born in Sudan in 1965 and who arrived in the United States in 1987 after studying in Saudi Arabia, is the current imam of the Virginia-based All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center (ADAMS). That center is affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror case that proved connections to the terrorist group Hamas and other radical Islamic entities.
ADAMS is a network of mosques and Islamic community centers in Washington area.
The United States designated the Holy Land Foundation as a terrorist group in 2001 and became defunct. The case resulted in 108 guilty verdicts, and several years later, five of its leaders were convicted and sentenced to decades in federal prison.
“Imam Magid’s presence on the panel is unfortunate, as he has made a career of blurring the line between the laudable exercise of religious freedom and the dangerous promotion of ideological extremism. Making excuses for terror-supporting activities at the ADAMS mosque hardly serves to advance religious freedom,” Oren Litwin, associate director of the Islamism in Politics project.
Magid was ISNA’s East Zone representative, then as vice president, and finally as president. The U.S. government listed ISNA in the Holy Land case as among “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”
According to PJ Media, he was “the Obama administration’s go-to guy for Muslim outreach and advised on international affairs and counterterrorism” and “a regular visitor to the White House (even when the administration wants to conceal it).” He was also apparently involved in other aspects of the administration, such as playing a crucial role in the Department of Homeland Security, said the report.
Magid is slated to be on a Wednesday-morning general session panel titled “Different Faiths Advancing Religious Freedom Together.”
That panel also includes Rabbi David Saperstein, who served as the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s director and chief legal counsel, and as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom under U.S. President Barack Obama; and Pastor Bob Roberts of Northwood Church in Texas.
The State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom organized the ministerial. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.