Attorney David Yerushalmi and his American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) have filed a motion to dismiss a wrongful termination lawsuit against several national security experts. The suit was filed by Omar Alomari, a multicultural relations officer, claiming that the experts caused the Ohio Homeland Security (OHS), to fire him from his position as liaison to the Ohio Muslim community.
The defendants in Alomari’s suit include Todd Sheets, Stephen Coughlin, John Guandolo and Patrick Poole who are experts on the Muslim Brotherhood and counterterrorism.
Alomari brought this civil lawsuit against these four individuals because they identified him as a “terrorist sympathizer” at a counterterrorist training course held at the Columbus Police Academy from April 13-15, 2010. This incident occurred after a picture surfaced of him posing with the OHS director and the head of the Council on American Islamic Relations’ Ohio chapter on the group’s website.
Evidence presented during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial – the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history – demonstrated that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), with which Alomari was connected, was founded by Hamas activists in a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia. CAIR was also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF case. The group attempted to have its name removed in 2010, but the motion was rejected by a federal judge in March 2010 before Sheets, Coughlin, Guandolo and Poole complained about Alomari at the police academy.
Alomari baselessly claims in his suit that Department of Public Safety fired him in June 2010 on account of his race, national origin and religion because he objected to training materials about Islamic terrorism that he claimed were biased.
The materials Alomari objected to included documents that were introduced at the HLF trial, showing plans the Muslim Brotherhood had to wage a “Civilizational Jihad” to destroy Western civilization from within, a source told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) speaking on background.
However, the Columbus Dispatch reported at the time of Alomari’s dismissal that he had failed to disclose that he had been fired from an Ohio community college for having had an improper sexual relationship with a student. The newspaper also reported that he had not disclosed on his application or background check forms his employment with the school, or his prior employment by the Jordanian government.
The investigation into his firing began after the Jawa Report blog first reported on Alomari’s actions in April 2010.
During his tenure, Alomari worked as the liaison between OHS and the Muslim and Arab communities on issues of “cultural competency.” He wrote and published a brochure for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Ohio Department of Homeland Security. The booklet, titled “Agents of Radicalization,” stated that the concept of “jihad” means holy war was a medieval European invention. It also indicated that the OHS was working with various Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as: CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the Muslim Students Association (MSA), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, denounced the Alomari report in a 2010 interview with IPT, saying the material was “classic Islamist propaganda,” which incorrectly suggests that “these thugs who kill people in restaurants and shopping malls will stop if we solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Alomari already failed in his attempt to get the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to reinstate him in the job in Sept. 2010.