Sunday, February 27, 2011

Minnesota Islamic Charter School May Have To Repay $20 Million In Taxpayer Funding

From Creeping Sharia:

Minn. Islamic school may have to repay $20M in taxpayer funding


Posted on February 27, 2011 by creeping

If it loses the case that is. Interestingly, the ACLU has settled with terror-linked Islamic Relief which may not bode well for taxpayers. Read the update on one of Minnesota’s taxpayer funded madrassas Islamic schools, via Lawsuit vs. TiZA is headed for a June trial
StarTribune.com.



On Friday in St. Paul, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank signed off on a settlement between the ACLU and the school’s sponsoring agency, Islamic Relief USA, removing it from the litigation, except for its request that TiZA reimburse it for nearly $1 million in legal costs.



An agreement also has been reached that will remove the Minnesota Department of Education from the suit brought by the ACLU, although the judge has yet to sign that agreement.



Now, with the ACLU and TiZA as main litigants, a trial could last five or six weeks beginning in June, Frank said from the bench Friday.



If TiZA loses, it could be on the hook to repay about $20 million in public money disbursed to the school since 2003, its attorneys said Friday.



It’s not clear yet whether TiZA is insured for such losses, said School Board Chairman Mahrous Kandil.



The public school should not receive public funding if the separation between religion and state is not maintained, said Chuck Samuelson, executive director of ACLU in Minnesota.



“We think this is a fundamental issue for charter schools,” Shamus O’Meara, lead attorney for TiZA, said Friday. “TiZA is doing the right thing on behalf of its population and partnering with its families to provide not only reasonable accommodations but also an excellent educational experience for its students.”



Previous posts on TIZA here, and a little background on Islamic Relief via Discover the Networks:



IRW was established in England in 1984 by Dr. Hani Al-Banna, who remains its President to this day. Al-Banna is a former trustee of Muslim Aid (MA), a global charity based in London. While Al-Banna was associated with MA, the group was a “partner organization” to the Al-Salah Islamic Association, a Gaza-based entity that the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a “Key Support Node” for the terrorist group Hamas. (MS Director Ahmed Al-Kurd was also designated by the U.S. government as a “terrorist.”) Moreover, while Al-Banna was involved with MA, the group was a partner to organizations directly related to the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).



In 1999, IRW’s main office (in England) received $50,000 from a Canadian group that the U.S. Treasury Department called “a bin Laden front.” According to Moscow’s Obshchaya Gazeta, IRW has collected and funneled millions of dollars to the Chechen terrorist rebels in Russia, who also have ties to al Qaeda.



Jehangir Malik, now working out of IRW’s Landoor Street, United Kingdom office, was formerly the Program Coordinator for IRW’s American branch, IRW-USA. While based in IRW-USA’s Burbank, California office in May 1999, Malik was a featured speaker at an event sponsored by the Muslim Youth of North America.



In May 2006, 36-year-old IRW operative Iyaz Ali, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, was arrested by the British General Security Services (GSS) in cooperation with the police Gideonim Unit. At his GSS interrogation, Ali admitted that he had been working as a project coordinator at IRW’s Gaza branch since December 2005. His activities included assisting Hamas-related institutions and groups such as Al Wafa and Al Tzalah, both of which are officially illegal in Israel. He also admitted that he had worked in Jordan and cooperated with local Hamas operatives there.



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