He openly praises ISIS, their terror attacks and even beheadings—all the things that the civilised world abhors.
And yet this 59-year-old Muslim cleric named Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa is a free man living in Maryland, U.S.A., free to spread the Islamist radicals' message of hate to Muslims living in America, the New York Times reports.
He has posted on social media atrocious videos showing Islamic State fighters beheading and burning alive their captives. He has also praised terrorist attacks overseas.
Bengharsa – an imam at mosques in Annapolis and outside Baltimore who also serves as a prison chaplain – was even found to have given money to at least one Muslim convert who was arrested for buying illegal explosives.
And yet he has not been charged or arrested because, according to authorities—incredulous as it may sound—he hasn't broken any law.
The FBI filed an affidavit in federal court saying Bengharsa gave $1,300 to a 29-year-old Muslim covert, identified as Sebastian Gregerson, in Detroit in June 2015.
The FBI said Gregerson used the money to buy firearms and grenades. He was subsequently arrested in July and indicted on explosives charges, according to The Times.
In the court filing, FBI agents said they believe the two suspects were plotting to commit an act of terror. "Based on the totality of the aforementioned information and evidence, there is reason to believe that Bengharsa and Gregerson are engaged in discussions and preparations for some violent act on behalf" of the ISIS, an agent wrote.
Bengharsa claimed that the money he gave to Gregerson was for "zakat" or for Islamic charity. ISIS militants frequently use the term "zakat" to secure extortion payments from residents of areas it controls in Iraq and Syria, according to the Daily Caller.
Court documents seen by The New York Times show that Bengharsa has plenty of money, receiving a sum of nearly a million dollars in a recent wire transfer. The bank transfer was sent around the time when Bengharsa started preaching in support of ISIS.
"It feels like McCarthyism," Bengharsa told The Detroit News in 2015. He continued, "I am an advocate of the United States and the West getting the hell out of the Middle East and the Muslim world."
On Sept. 17, New York City and New Jersey were rocked almost simultaneously by bomb explosions while a stabbing incident was reported at a Minnesota mall. Twenty-nine people were injured in the New York explosion while nine were wounded in the Minnesota stabbing spree. The knife-wielding assailant, who called himself a "soldier of the Islamic State," was shot dead by a police officer.
Neither Bengharsa nor Gregerson has been linked yet to these acts of terror.
