The men behind the mosque
Last Updated: 1:46 AM, August 31, 2010
Posted: August 31, 2010
No wonder the guys who want to build that Islamic center near Ground Zero are quiet as mosque mice about financing: Turns out, as The Post first reported, their own financial records are, well, a bit short of blue chip.
Indeed, Sharif El-Gamal, who owns the site -- as The Post's Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported Sunday -- owes nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the city in back payments.
His firm, 45 Park Place Partners, simply skipped its property-tax bills in January and July, according to the Finance Department. Gamal's folks say he delayed payments while seeking a lower tax rate, The New York Times reported.
AP
Sharif el-Gamal
Gamal, 37, also reportedly pleaded guilty to at least six misdemeanors while in his teens and 20s. Charges included disorderly conduct, drunk driving and attempted shoplifting.
And he was arrested once for punching a man who owed his brother money and another time for soliciting a prostitute.
Meanwhile, tenants in New Jersey buildings owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who's leading the mosque project, describe him as a veritable slumlord.
"All he likes is money," one tenant, Vilma Then, says. "Nothing [in her building] ever gets fixed."
Jamie Barillas, another tenant, agrees, adding that tenants are forced to call their city officials to seek action. Barillas complains, for example, that bedbugs plague her building and that managers claim they don't have money for an exterminator.
All of which sheds new light on the question of how Gamal and Rauf will get the $100 million said to be needed for the mosque project.
Rauf has talked out of both sides of his mouth about that. He's told US audiences that the cash will come from US Muslims but suggested to an Arabic newspaper that he'll get funding from Arab countries.
That in itself is troubling.
Is he thinking of, say, Saudi Arabia? Funds from that country -- as reports, like one in 2005 by Freedom House, have shown -- have already gone to finance mosques that spread the violent Wahhabist strain of Islam.
What kind of mosque exactly do Rauf, Gamal & Co. have in mind?
But the reports about their financial records raise even more questions.
As we've said repeatedly, they have a right to build an Islamic center hard by Ground Zero -- inappropriate as many find that to be. But they have to be able to pay for it. With clean money.
And until they say -- at the least -- how they'll do that, there's little cause to back their project.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_men_behind_the_mosque_8Zt0qM9oJAg2c2LYn8ZlTN#ixzz0yB6gM8Cc
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