DETROIT — The family of the imam shot dead Wednesday said
the FBI is on a witch-hunt that doesn’t make sense.
“That is the most ridiculous thing ever,” Omar
Regan, 34, said Thursday, referring to allegations against his father — Imam
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53 — and his brother — Mujahid Carswell, 30 — both named
in a complaint alleging involvement in a radical Muslim group.
Abdullah of Detroit was killed in a shootout Wednesday.
Carswell, also of Detroit, was arrested Thursday in Canada.
Regan, who flew into Detroit on Thursday with his sister,
questioned why is father would live such a modest life if he were involved in a
profit-making ring.
“They’re living in … one of the worst parts of
Detroit,” said Regan of Los Angeles. “They don’t have anything.”
The federal complaint describes Abdullah as the head of a
Sunni Muslim group with the mission of establishing a separate Islamic nation
within the United States.
All lies, said his daughter, Bernita Regan, 35, also of Los
Angeles.
“We’re not worried about all those statements because
we know what’s true, and everyone who knows him knows what’s true,” she
said.
Omar Regan said the closest Abdullah came to espousing a
radical overthrow of the government was to suggest the creation of Islamic law
in areas to combat theft, drugs, prostitution and other crimes.
“What he did say was he’d like to have Islamic law
inside of a neighborhood, because he wanted no drugs, no guns, peace where the
children can run and play,” Regan said.
He also questioned how an informant could watch his father
feed hungry people at his Clairmount Street mosque each Sunday and believes his
more radical statements weren’t just hyperbole.
“My father is a great guy, but I want to be honest — he
was from the ’60s,” he said. “He did carry a gun — he’d been shot at
three times. He spoke out against injustice. And when people speak through
emotion, they record that and use it against them.”
Abdullah did mistrust police — for good reason after a
number of incidents, Regan said. In one, officers reacted to Abdullah’s attempt
to broadcast a call to prayer in the neighborhood.
“The police drove up on the sidewalk and stood on the
car and broke down the speaker,” Regan said. “And the people in the
neighborhood were like, ‘Why?'”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
