Since its opening in 1957, the Islamic Center of Washington has been the city’s most prominent mosque—a center of worship for thousands of area Muslims, including many members of the capital’s diplomatic corps. President Bush even made a speech at the mosque earlier this summer.But now the Islamic Center has become immersed in a nasty court battle marked by charges of embezzlement, abuse of women and an alleged attempt to spread radical messages of hate.
The fireworks began earlier this year when federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against the recently ousted business manager of the mosque, Farzad Darui. A later five-count indictment charged that Durui, an Iranian native who formerly served as the mosque’s security chief, embezzled more than $430,000 in five years—in part by altering checks and diverting mosque funds to corporate entities he controlled.
This week, Darui returned fire. He claimed in papers filed in federal court in the District of Columbia that the charges against him had been manufactured by unnamed Saudi government officials as part of a scheme to oust him from his post. Their goal, Darui maintains, was to claim control over the mosque after Darui resisted Saudi efforts to have “radical” Wahhabi figures deliver messages of intolerance there.
“Because Darui barred Islamic radicals, from the [Islamic] Center, the Saudis, via the Center, have falsely accused him of embezzlement,” Darui’s filing claims. He seeks to have all charges against him dismissed. The filing was prepared by his lawyer, Washington attorney Victoria Toensing.
Darui’s filing also takes aim at the mosque’s longtime director, Abduallah M. Khouj, a Saudi national and former official of the Saudi-funded Muslim World League. Darui claimed in the court filing that the funds he was accused of embezzling were in fact received as repayment of debts that he incurred for the “housing and feeding of Khouj’s …‘wives,’ or mistresses.” In one case, Darui claims in the filing, he made payments on behalf of Khouj to a woman who said she had been held against her will in Khouj’s house.
A woman who answered the phone at the Islamic Center today and identified herself as the office manager said neither Khouj nor anybody on his behalf would comment on the allegations in Darui’s court papers. “We don’t have anything to say about that matter,” said the woman, who said her name was Fatima Goodwin. Repeated phone calls to the Saudi Embassy and a lawyer for the mosque were not returned. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, which brought the criminal case against Darui, said prosecutors would respond to the allegations in Darui’s filing in court.
The charges and countercharges involving the Islamic Center come at an awkward time for the mosque. Only two months ago, President Bush used a visit to the mosque to announce that his administration planned to appoint the first-ever U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Bush had also made a highly publicized trip to the Islamic Center after the September 11 attacks.
But Darui’s court filing depicts the Islamic Center as a center of intrigue and conflict over competing views of its role and message. The filing said that Darui had worked for the mosque since 1984 and “has been dedicated to preventing radical fundamentalists” from taking it over. But his efforts, he alleges, brought him into repeated conflicts with Khouj—who as mosque administrator received $600,000 a year in Saudi Embassy funds, his filing says. “Darui … had to deal with security issues caused by the Saudi Embassy, particularly the Religious Section,” the filing states. “He had to bar from the Center individuals who adhered to a radical form of Wahhabism and whom he considered a serious threat. They were invited to preach by Khouj, but did so at the bidding of the Religious Section. When these radicals preached, it was a message of hate and discrimination against anyone who disagreed.”
The two specific examples cited in the court filing involve Ali Al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar who has since been convicted in federal court on charges involving incitement to terrorism and Osama Basnan, a Saudi who was deported in 2002 after federal officials concluded he was a dedicated jihadi who had expressed sympathy for the 9/11 hijackers.
The conflicts between Darui and Khouj came to a head three years ago when, according to Darui’s court filing, he learned that Khouj was planning to leave and the Saudis intended to replace him with a former director of the Institute for Islamic and Arab Sciences, an organization that has been investigated by U.S. officials for possible links to terrorism. (No charges have been filed against the group.) After Darui sought to thwart the move by calling a rare board meeting, “the Religious Section of the Saudi Embassy began spreading the rumor that Darui was embezzling funds.”