Imam told Portland Seven that combat against U.S. was 'legitimate jihad,' court papers say

By Bryan Denson
The Oregonian
September 30, 2015

The imam of Portland's biggest mosque collected money from worshippers after 9/11, sending the Portland Seven to Afghanistan to fight against coalition forces, the U.S. Department of Justice alleges in its fight to deport the imam.

Arguments between lawyers for Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye and the Justice Department reveal new details of the government's legal maneuvers to strip the imam of his citizenship.

As religious leader of Masjed As-Saber, Kariye told several members of the plot that "Muslims should fight with fellow Muslim brothers of Afghanistan against Americans" and that this combat was a "righteous fight ... legitimate jihad," Justice Department lawyers wrote in an exhibit filed earlier this month in the immigration case.

"Kariye was present when members of the Portland Seven left to go wage jihad, and he wished them good luck on their journey," according to an exhibit filed earlier this month in the government's lawsuit to strip Kariye of his citizenship.

The imam was never charged with any crime related to the Portland Seven. While people who prayed in his mosque were sentenced to prison for their roles in the failed plot, Kariye's only U.S. criminal conviction came in 2003, when he got probation for understating his income to qualify for state healthcare benefits and using a Social Security card with a false birth date.

Kariye's lawyers, Nicole Nelson and Philip James Smith, have filed papers seeking to dismiss the government's lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds. They argue that federal law requires the U.S. attorney to file such a complaint, not the team from the Justice Department's Office of Immigration Litigation in Washington, D.C.

Government lawyers Benjamin G. Mizer, William C. Peachey and Christopher W. Dempsey argued in a response filed earlier this month that the law allows them to represent the U.S. in filing the complaint to strip Kariye of his naturalization.

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown is expected to rule on the dueling motions, but it's unclear when.

Brown presides in another civil complaint involving Kariye: He is one of several plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses the FBI and its Terrorist Screening Center of violating the constitutional rights of those placed on the U.S. no-fly list, including him.

The exhibit that the government included in its response to the denaturalization lawsuit accuses Kariye of lacking the good moral character necessary to remain a U.S. citizen. The document, marked "sensitive but unclassified, for official use only," was signed last February by then-U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall.

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