[Al Arabiya Latest] A group of Muslim youths accused the United States most senior Shiite cleric Hassan Qazwini of the embezzlement of Arab donations and called for the immediate return of the stolen money.
| Wasn't sending enough ammo to the Widows in southern Lebanon? |
Shiite Muslims gathered at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan where they attended the memorial of the late Lebanese cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. On their way out, they found a statement signed by a group that calls itself the Muslim Youth Congregation posted on the windshields of their cars, accusing prominent Iraqi-born cleric Hassan Qazwini, director of the Shiite dominated center, of embezzlement.
According to the statement, Qazwini collected donations from the Arab community in the United States and transferred them to his father's company in California. The statement called upon Qazwini to immediately return the money, estimated at $350,000, to the center and laid the blame on the center's Board of Trustees for the negligence that allowed Qazwini to get away with stealing the money.
| $350K? That's a lot of ammo. Or spending money at the Pole Dancing Club when the hard boyz need R & R ... |
The Muslim Youth Congregation also accused Qazwini of slamming supporters of Fadlallah and ordering Shiites not to take him as a role model.
Arab residents of Dearborn said they are not familiar with the group that signed the statement and attributed the accusation to internal disputes between Qazwini and members of the center's Board of Trustees.
According to sources from the center, there have been attempts to remove Qazwini from his post, yet they all failed since he had the support of Shiite youths, also called The Youth Movement. Qazwini's popularity, sources added, is basically due to his ability to preach in English, in addition to Arabic, which is not the case with several Shiite clerics in the United States. This, naturally, increased the number of his supporters.
| Oh naturally, since the youts haven't even learned enough of the mother tongue to read the Quran ... |
Qazwini vehemently denied all the accusations leveled against him and said that the 350,000 dollar amount is in the center with all the relevant documents and payment receipts.
"I am going to submit all the documents that prove the falsity of these accusations," he told Arab-American press in Dearborn.
As for transferring donations, Qazwinin admitted to sending an amount, a quarter of the sum mentioned in the statement, to orphans in the Iraqi city of Karbala and specifically to a charity organization run by his father.
"Here's the money for the ammo, Pops!"
"Thanks son! Keep it coming!" |
"I am not sending money to Iraq because I am Iraqi, but because there are around five million orphans in Iraq and the government only supported 597 of them according to a UNICEF report issued two years ago."
| All those poor kids walking around every day without ammo ... |
Qazwini added that transferring the money was done with the knowledge of the center's members and Board of Trustees and that his father's organization, called al-Imam al-Sadeq, is licensed and registered in the United States under Development and Relief Foundation.
"I gave a receipt to every single person who donated and all those receipts are registered."
| I'd like the names and addresses from each one ... |
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