Tariq Ramadan

[Petronas]

Tariq Ramadan new links to terror
Posted by jc brisard on September 13, 2006 at 13:44

Following a decision of the US government not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa or provide good reasons for not doing so, Tariq Ramadan is on the eve of entering the United States, two years after his visa was revoked, based on provisions of the US Patriot Act allowing exclusion of foreign citizens who have “endorsed or espoused terrorism”.

Tariq Ramadan has always denied endorsing terrorism or having any contact with terrorists in Europe. When confronted with the evidence I provided during a face to face debate on Swiss TV in December 2003, he again denied these contacts. On terrorism and the use of suicide attacks against civilians he used his favorite "double standard" position: he condemned these acts "globally", but found them justified "contextually".

The evidence provided included the following:

- A Spanish Police General Directorate memo dated 1999 stating that Ahmed Brahim (sentenced to 10 years in prison for incitement to terrorism in April 2006) maintained "regular contacts with important figures of radical Islam such as Tariq Ramadan".

- The minutes of Djamel Beghal’s (sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2005) first appearance testimony on October 1st, 2001 (following his indictment by a French antiterrorist judge for his participation to a foiled terrorist attack against the US Embassy in Paris), where he stated that before 1994, he "attended the courses given by Tarek Ramadan". According to the final prosecution documents, during his first interrogation before UAE authorities who arrested him, Beghal stated on September 22, 2001, that "his religious engagement started in 1994" when "he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan".

- A Swiss intelligence memo of 2001 stating that "brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan coordinated a meeting held in 1991 in Geneva attended by Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman", respectively Al Qaeda leader and planner of the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993, and sentenced to life in the United States.

- A human source testimony corroborating this information and stating that at the end of a friday prayer at the Islamic Center of Geneva in 1991, Hani Ramadan, brother of Tariq Ramadan, told the audience that a conference will be held few days later with Ayman Al Zawahiri, describing him as an “Islamic Mujahideen”.

- An abstract of the Al Taqwa Bank (listed as SDGT) phonebook seized at Youssef Nada's house in 2001 where the Ramadan’s family name precedes the mention of "Said Ramadan", Tariq and Hani Ramadan’s father.

New documents reveal that Tariq Ramadan had contacts with other terrorists in Europe.

According to the final French prosecution filing (dated December 8, 2005) against the "Chechen networks", who had planned chemical attacks in France "under the supervision of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi", Menad Benchellali (Head of the network who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2006) traveled to Switzerland "one or two times in 2000 to attend conferences on Islam provided by Tariq Ramadan".

http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2006/09/tariq_ramadan_n.html

[Petronas]

U.S. refuses visa to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan
Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:59 PM BST

A prominent Swiss Muslim intellectual said on Monday the U.S. government had dropped charges against him of supporting terrorism, but refused to scrap an entry ban. Tariq Ramadan, now an academic at Oxford University, said he had received an official letter effectively clearing him of charges that kept him from taking up a teaching post at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

However, the letter from the U.S. embassy in Bern explained the continued ban by saying he had contributed about 600 euros (403 pounds) to a Palestinian support group, he said. "This is an ideological exclusion," he told Reuters by telephone from London. "This is the only way they can justify their decision after two years of investigation."

Ramadan, who has been a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its support for Israel, received a visa in 2004 but Washington later revoked it on advice from the Department of Homeland Security, which gave no reason for its decision. He quit the post but fought to have the ban lifted and his name cleared.

A federal judge in New York criticised the government in June for holding up his visa application and ruled it must make a decision in the long-running case within three months.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sued the U.S. government in January on behalf of Ramadan and institutes that had invited him to speak, arguing the government improperly denied visas to scholars critical of the Bush administration.

The U.S. State Department confirmed that it had denied Ramadan a visa, but said this had nothing to do with his views.

"A U.S. consular officer has denied Dr. Tariq Ramadan's visa application ... for providing material support to a terrorist organisation," said State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper. "The consular officer concluded that Dr. Ramadan was inadmissible based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organisation." Cooper gave no details about what Ramadan did to trigger the denial, citing the confidentiality of the visa application process. The ACLU said it was considering an appeal of the decision to deny Ramadan a visa. ...

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-25T205944Z_01_N25297266_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-USA-RAMADAN.xml