Please note: Within a week of being sent to prison(10/18/05) Ayman asked me to stop soliciting interest in an appeal to prevent him from being sent back to Jordan and possibly face torture. So I stopped working on this web page and his appeal. He felt the less publicity, the less the chances for him of facing hardship back in Jordan. Sad because he, as his story below tells, had been an outspoken champion for the suffering and victims of injustice.
On December 23, 2006 after serving more than 18 months in Federal prison Ayman was released. He was then sent to a county jail and was subsequently deported to Jordan. He was not tortured in Jordan. He is currently looking for work.
While in Federal Prison prosecutor Michael Olmstead visited Ayman and brought him a suit, shoes and some books. Many of us felt that Olmstead did this out of guilt because he had promised Ayman that if he plead guilty and testified at the Dhafir trial that he would get probation and not be deported.
A little over a month after Ayman’s and Dr. Dhafir’s sentencing in November of 2005 Prosecutor’s Olmstead, West and Greene spoke at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in a program on Terrorism Financing. The fact that they had smeared Dr. Dhafir as a terrorist—West even called Ayman a “dirty bomber”—and had successfully argued to prevent the defense from raising the issue of terrorism during the trial, they had no problem slamming Dr. Dhafir and Ayman as terrorists at the conference.
While collegiate athletics has rules about un-sportsman like conduct—trash talking, jeering—it appears Syracuse University has no similar standard for its speakers. When asked about the defendants in the Dhafir case lead prosecutor Michael Olmstead said;
“When you do the crime, you do the time”.
Constructed within a few days after his sentencing. Ayman’s story follows.
To learn more about Prosecutor's Suddaby, Olmstead, West and Greene go to: LoyalBushie.org
The Ayman you will never know!
On October 18, 2005 Ayman Jarwan was sentenced to serve 18 months in Federal Prison for his part in the Help the Needy charity case. Help the Needy was a charity set up by Dr. Rafil Dhafir to provide humanitarian aid to people in Iraq during the time economic sanctions hurt so many people. It is estimated that over half a million Iraqi children died because of the sanctions. The aid violated the IEEPA or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Ayman and Rafil are the only people to be criminally charged with breaking the sanctions, when thousands also did so(See Operation Free Dhafir.
Since Ayman is a Jordanian citizen he will be deported to Jordan when his sentence is completed. Amnesty International has cited Jordan for torturing its prisoners. It is very likely this will be his fate.
As an advocate for Dr. Dhafir, I got to know Ayman these past few years. I think that everyone in the Syracuse community should know what we have lost and what is being done to a very good man.
I first met Ayman in the summer of 2003. The discussion almost immediately turned to the war with Iraq and the suffering of the people. It was evident that he was very upset with what was going on.
In December of 2003 when an earthquake hit Iran killing tens of thousands of people, Ayman could not stand by. He asked the Muslim community and the greater CNY community to join other groups across America and donate to relief efforts.
It was odd that someone being squeezed by the tight fist of the US government would be the one advocating to help Iranians. But to Ayman someone had to step up. The local Muslim community was still scarred by the fear created from the inappropriate FBI interrogations of 150 Muslim families who had donated to Help the Needy. Then there was the Islamophobia lingering from 9-11and Iran was part of the supposed "Axis of Evil"–an anathema to Team Bush and all its lieutenants.
If there is any doubt that hate and prejudice were pervasive in our community we need only look to how the Syracuse Post Standard covered Ayman’s act of compassion. Take the title, “ MAN INVOLVED IN HELP THE NEEDY CASE URGES PEOPLE TO AID EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS’. Why would the paper choose to emphasize that Ayman was involved with Help the Needy? The first half of the article talked exclusively about the Help the Needy case and not about how to help those suffering from the quake.
In late spring of 2004 when the stories of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse and torture broke, I got a call from Dr. Dhafir’s best friend, Haykal Abughoosh.
"Madis you got to do something about this Abu Graib thing. People are very upset. Can you organize something?
Being upset myself I said "Okay".
I talked to a few people and we decided to provide an area in front of Plymouth Congregation church in downtown Syracuse where people could post their opinions, pros and cons. We would kick off the action Monday morning with speeches and prayers and the display would remain up for the rest of the week.
I should not have been surprised when Haykal showed up with Ayman, but I was. I immediately knew that it was Ayman that had pushed his friend to have the event.
"Are you crazy," I told Ayman. "The government may be monitoring us and will break your deal if you are seen here."
He laughed and shrugged it off. "Don’t worry Madis."
With the government desperate for trophies in the war on terror I knew that there was a good chance that we were being watched. I myself have had several experiences of being watched. Once I was late for Friday service at the mosque and a Federal Agent sitting in a car across the street waved to me and said "hi" as I walked by. Someone also told me that the FBI had contacted him for information about me. If I was being scrutinized, surely Ayman was a much larger target.
That summer of 2004 I saw Ayman at a showing of movie on the Arab Israeli conflict at University United Methodist Church. He was all excited about his new endeavor, a magazine to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together through education.
Hope was high for all. Dr. Dhafir’s defense team had just filed a motion for acquittal and the trial was going to start in a few months. Justice would finally be served. It was not to be.
When I look at the prosecution I wonder how people can be so fiendish as to harass and intimidate a faith community just to gather information.
To think that people following their faith by doing acts of compassion now face long prison sentences and possible torture abroad is very difficult to accept.
How could lead Prosecutor Michael Olmstead and his boss Glenn Suddaby now renege on their deal with Ayman? He had cooperated with them during the trial by testifying and helped educate FBI agents about Muslim practices.
Mr. Olmstead did reduce Ayman’s sentencing points on the Judge’s guidelines, but not enough to keep him from going to jail and then being automatically deported because of this. Mr. Olmstead was quoted in the Associated Press saying that Ayman will be deported. There should be no doubt that Olmstead knows that Jordan tortures its prisoners.
At Ayman’s sentencing Mr. Olmstead said that Ayman had helped the government but implied that had Ayman done more to help the government he would have gotten a further reduction in his sentence that would have resulted in probation.
I disagree. Mr. Olmstead was not penalizing Ayman for not doing enough, but for doing too much. We can only hope and pray that we, like Ayman, will have the strength and courage to follow the voice of our higher self and give too much.
peace, shalom, salaaam
Madis Senner
315-463-5369
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