COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS Group plans to monitor Damra trial

If convicted, Damra could face up to five years in prison and deportation.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Islamic and Jewish communities will be watching the trial of an Islamic cleric charged with lying about alleged terrorist ties when he applied for U.S. citizenship.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations will be alert to any sign of ethnic stereotyping, said spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
"Of course we're concerned that all of his due process is maintained and evidence be free of religious or ethnic stereotyping," Hooper said.
The federal trial is to begin Tuesday in Akron for Imam Fawaz Damra, 41, who leads the Islamic Center of Cleveland, Ohio's largest mosque community. He could face up to five years in prison and deportation if convicted.
"We're always concerned when prominent leaders of the American Islamic community are charged, or detained or harassed," Hooper said.
Video horrifies community
The Jewish community in Cleveland, which was shocked by a 10-year-old Damra video in which he inveighed against Jews as "the sons of monkeys and pigs," will monitor the trial, according to Bettysue Feuer, Cleveland regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
She said the disclosure of the video shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon "was a punch in the stomach" for the Jewish community. "It was really devastating," she said.
Damra, who has shunned interviews since his arrest at his suburban Strongsville home on Jan. 13, didn't respond to a request for an interview or comment from another mosque leader. He has denied having ties to terrorist groups.
Saeid B. Amini, an attorney who has worked for Damra on non-criminal matters, doubts the government can prove its case.
"After two to three years of searching, agents trying to find what they can against him, they came up with ridiculous charges," Amini said last week.
The government's case will be limited to evidence before Damra became a citizen in April 1994, a point underscored by the judge when he reminded prosecutors that any issue of admitting evidence would be evaluated on that 1994 time line.
U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin on Monday told prosecutors to make sure they and their witnesses avoid comments such as "dangerous global jihad" or holy war because the jury could consider the comments inflammatory. He said he would consider allowing the terms only if the government can prove they are relevant to the case.
He said prosecutors cannot discuss Al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden, saying the relevance to the case was minimal "but the risk of inflaming the jury is great."
He also barred evidence about the federal government's designation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a terrorist group because the designation came after 1994 and because the defense would not have a chance to question the government about how it made that decision. Prosecutors said evidence will show Damra knew the groups had terrorist activity even before the government made the official designation.
But Gwin allowed other government evidence and testimony about the groups, including video tapes showing Damra allegedly fund-raising for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Maktab al-Khidmat. The judge also said he would allow evidence about terrorist acts connected to the groups that occurred before Damra's application.
New location
The trial for the Palestinian-born Damra, also known as Fawaz Mohammed Damrah, was originally set for Cleveland but was moved when the defense raised questions about media coverage there.
The government witness list includes officers involved in Damra's arrest Jan. 3, 1989, at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on an accusation of assaulting a security guard. The case was dropped, but the government said the alleged failure to disclose the arrest on the citizenship application violated the law.
The government also plans to call as witnesses FBI agents who conducted terrorism-related investigations in Tampa, Fla., and the Al-Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Damra worked before moving to Cleveland more than a decade ago.
The defense hasn't indicated whether Damra will testify.