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Democrats Debate Mueller Strategy as Findings Loom

Congressional Democrats are plotting strategy as they await the conclusions of Robert Mueller's now-completed Russia investigation, with senior lawmakers demanding full transparency and preparing for next steps if the results are favorable to President Donald Trump.

House Democrats planned meetings by phone on Saturday to share what they know about the probe and to discuss how to move forward. It was unclear how soon they will have more information from Attorney General William Barr, who received the report from Mueller on Friday and has notified Congress that he intends to share its "principal conclusions" soon.

The Justice Department told lawmakers that Barr's summary was not expected Saturday but could still come over the weekend, according to multiple people familiar with the notification. The people requested anonymity to discuss the private message from the Justice Department.

The conclusion of Mueller's probe comes as House Democrats have launched several of their own into Trump and his personal and political dealings. And no matter what Mueller concludes, they say there is much more investigating to do.

"It's the end of the beginning but it's not the beginning of the end," said Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, echoing his party's strategy moving forward.

In a Saturday conference call, Coons also issued a warning for his fellow Democrats, many of whom have pinned astronomical political hopes on Mueller's findings: "Once we get the principal conclusions of the report, I think it's entirely possible that that will be a good day for the president and his core supporters."

As they waited for more information, House Democrats planned conference calls. In a letter to colleagues Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there would be an "emergency caucus conference call" in the afternoon in which committee chairmen would update all Democratic House members on "where we go from here." Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were expected to convene on a smaller call beforehand.

Without the results of the report, the Democrats were expected to discuss the few details that are currently known and also their own plans to call for more transparency. Pelosi said in the letter that Barr's offer to provide Congress with a summary of conclusions was "insufficient."

Democrats have said they have to see the full report from Mueller, including underlying evidence, before they can assess it. Those demands for information are setting up a potential tug of war between Congress and the Trump administration that federal judges might eventually have to referee.

Six Democratic committee chairmen wrote in a letter to Barr on Friday that if Mueller has any reason to believe that Trump "has engaged in criminal or other serious misconduct," then the Justice Department should not conceal it.

"The president is not above the law and the need for public faith in our democratic institutions and the rule of law must be the priority," the chairmen wrote.

It's unclear what Mueller has found related to the president, or if any of it would be damning. In his investigation of whether Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the 2016 election, Mueller has already brought charges against 34 people, including six aides and advisers to the president, and three companies.

Lawmakers say they need that underlying evidence — including interviews, documents and material turned over to the grand jury — because the Justice Department has maintained that a president cannot be indicted and also that derogatory information cannot be released about people who have not been charged. So if the investigation did find evidence incriminating Trump, they may not be able to release it, under their own guidelines.

The Democrats say it could be tantamount to a cover-up if the department did not let Congress and the public know what they found.

Barr testified at his confirmation hearings that he wants to release as much information as he can about the inquiry. But the department's regulations require only that the attorney general report to Congress that the investigation has concluded and describe or explain any times when he or Rosenstein decided an action Mueller proposed "was so inappropriate or unwarranted" that it should not be pursued. Barr said Friday there were no such instances where Mueller was thwarted.

But anything less than the full report won't be enough for Democrats.

"If the AG plays any games, we will subpoena the report, ask Mr. Mueller to testify, and take it all to court if necessary," said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. "The people deserve to know."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told CNN on Friday that he's willing to subpoena Mueller and Barr, if needed, to push for disclosure.

Though Trump himself has said the report should be made public, it's not clear whether the administration would fight subpoenas for testimony or block the transmission of grand jury material.

If the administration decides to fight, lawmakers could ask federal courts to step in and enforce a subpoena. A court fight could, in theory, reach the Supreme Court. But few tussles between Congress and the White House get that far. They often are resolved through negotiation.

In both the Clinton and Obama administrations, even when talks failed and courts got involved in assessing claims of executive privilege, the White House decided not to take the fight to the high court and complied with lower court rulings against it.

The Democrats, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, could also formally ask Mueller to send his committee evidence that could be used in possible impeachment proceedings against Trump, as suggested by Benjamin Wittes, a senior Brookings Institution fellow and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog.

That's the course one of Nadler's predecessors followed during Watergate, although an impeachment inquiry against President Richard Nixon had already started by that point. Grand jury material from special counsel Leon Jaworski, provided through the federal judge who presided over the Watergate trials, became the road map that the House committee used to vote for articles of impeachment. Nixon resigned before the full House acted on his impeachment.

Pelosi said recently that she's not for impeaching Trump, at least for now.

Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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EU debates how and when to start trade talks with Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speak about trade relations in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about trade relations with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

February 22, 2019

By Philip Blenkinsop

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – European ministers will begin debating on Friday how and when to start trade negotiations with the United States, aware that U.S. President Donald Trump may impose punitive tariffs on EU car imports if the bloc waits too long.

The European Commission has asked the EU’s 28 countries to approve two negotiating mandates so that formal talks can begin. Germany is keen to start as soon as possible, while France is reluctant to engage with Trump.

The United States and Europe ended a stand-off of several months last July, when Trump agreed to hold off on car tariffs while the two sides looked to improve trade ties.

They committed to work towards removing tariffs on “non-auto industrial goods”, discuss ways to agree on product standards to boost trade and increase EU imports of U.S. soybeans and liquefied natural gas.

The EU is looking now to start negotiations on tariff reductions, possibly including cars, as well as a separate set of talks on making it easier for companies to clear their products for sale on both sides of the Atlantic.

The ministers in Romania will face three questions.

The first concerns timing. Germany, whose exports of cars and car parts to the United States are worth more than half of the EU total, is keen to press ahead, but France is hesitant of moving before European Parliament elections in May.

The second question is whether to include fisheries, which is technically an industrial good. Some countries, such as France again, are concerned about increased competition in the sector, which is already strained by Brexit.

The third question is what to do about the previous broader “TTIP” negotiations, which drew thousands to streets in Europe in protest. The Commission has insisted the slimmed-down trade deal it is proposing is not a TTIP relaunch. One option to make that clear could be to formally end TTIP.

Industrial good tariffs are already low, at around 4 percent.

However, the Commission has said that removing them would boost EU exports to the United States by 8 percent and U.S. exports to the European Union by 9 percent by 2033, corresponding to extra exports of respectively 27 and 26 billion euros

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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18 States Offer In-State Tuition For Illegals… And Legal Residents Are Not Happy About That

The Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that colleges in Georgia are not required to admit illegal immigrant students. 

The decision further sparked a national conversation about the rights of Dreamers, as well as the legality of offering them in-state tuition benefits, which usually allow students attending college in their home states to pay far less than their peers from different states.

Citing US Code 1623, which states that anyone who is not legally a citizen cannot be entitled to any benefit that is denied to a citizen of the United States, some have questioned whether those here illegally should be offered in-state tuition rates that aren’t available to other students who are citizens. Currently, 18 states, offer some form of a pathway for in-state tuition to those living here illegally.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 18 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington — offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrant students. Two more states — Oklahoma and Rhode Island — offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrant students, pending approval from the Board of Regents. 

So, what do college students think?

Is it fair for those who are here illegally to have access to in-state tuition? Campus Reform spoke to students all day at the University of Nevada- Las Vegas, and not one student said that doesn’t seem right.

“Why do they get to pay less when I’ve got to pay more?” one student said…

…while another added, “What do you get for living here all your life legally instead of coming here illegally? I just don’t think that’s fair.”

Another student echoed that sentiment, saying, “that’s disappointing because I did quite a bit to earn my college.”

WATCH:



Here’s why politicians were no match for Candice Owens because she’s more authentic.

Source: InfoWars

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U.S. regulators propose rule to ease leverage rule for custody banks

The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. building at 1 Wall St. is seen in New York's financial district
The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. building at 1 Wall St. is seen in New York's financial district March 11, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 18, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. banking regulators on Thursday proposed a rule that would allow custody banks to exclude deposits with central banks from a stringent capital requirement.

The relief, prescribed by a bank deregulation bill passed by Congress in May, would apply to Bank of New York Mellon, Northern Trust and State Street, as firms “predominantly engaged in custody, safekeeping, and asset servicing activities.”

When finalized, the rule would allow those banks to exclude such central bank deposits from the supplementary leverage ratio, which directs each bank to hold more capital against its assets.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: OANN

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Axios: Trump Plans to Pick Barrett for Ginsburg’s SCOTUS Seat

President Donald Trump last year told confidants he was planning to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat with conservative Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, reports Axios.

“I’m saving her for Ginsburg,” Trump said as he was deliberating over filling Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat, according to three sources who spoke with the news outlet.

Ginsburg, 86, just finished her third battle with cancer. She returned to the bench in early February after missing a series of cases due to surgery for lung cancer.

Axios reported that Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh over Barrett last year over concerns her staunch opposition to abortion rights would lose the votes of Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

One source told Axios that Barrett is “the most known quantity right now amongst the women on the list. ... And she also has the inside track in the sense that she was kind of battle-tested for having gone through a confirmation already."

Trump, though, changes his mind all the time.

"The Supreme Court judicial selection process with the president is a very fluid one," said a source. "He floats in and out of these discussions over a period of time."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Sudan government arrests opposition leaders ahead of protest

A Sudanese opposition party says more than 10 opposition leaders have been arrested ahead of the latest day of protests urging President Omar al-Bashir to resign.

In a statement, the Sudanese Congress Party says security forces "pre-empted" demonstrations by arresting the deputy head of the Umma Party, Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi; the party's Secretary-General Sara Naqdallah; Communist Party leader Mokhtar al-Khatib, and others.

Later, police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds who had gathered to march, near the Arab Market area in Khartoum.

Sudan has been rocked by a wave of protests since December calling on al-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup, to step down. Activists say at least 57 people have been killed, but the government tally stands at 30.

Source: Fox News World

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Cardi B Is Not Receiving Charges After Alleged Met Gala Assault

Lauryn Overhultz | Columnist

American rapper Cardi B will not be charged for the alleged assault that occurred between her security team and a fan seeking an autograph.

Cardi B and her team won’t be facing any charges because the victim of the attacks refused to be interviewed by the New York Police Department, according to a report published Friday by TMZ.

The assault case has been officially closed according to authorities.

Watch the video to see what happened:

Cardi B and Offset were leaving a Met Gala party when they were approached by an enthusiastic fan asking for an autograph. Offset allegedly ordered the security to attack the fan when he wouldn’t leave the group alone. (RELATED: Cardi B Files For Trademark Of Her Famous Phrase ‘Okurrr’)

None of the security guards were arrested at the time of the alleged assault. Only Cardi B and Offset’s rapper group Migos were facing criminal charges.

Although there are no criminal charges, the alleged victim, Giovanni Arnold, filed a civil lawsuit against Cardi B following the attack in May.

Arnold claims Cardi yelled, “F**k outta here n****. I will slap the s**t out of you.” Offset allegedly followed up by yelling, “Shut up bro before a n***a beat you out here.”

Arnold claimed in the lawsuit he tried to de-escalate the argument but was attacked instead.

Source: The Daily Caller

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Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf – Masters – Augusta National Golf Club – Augusta, Georgia, U.S. – April 14, 2019 – Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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