CAIR-Ohio fires executive director over spying for an anti-Muslim hate group

Ohio (QNN)- The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced on Tuesday it has fired its executive and legal director, saying he’d been secretly spying for years on the organization.

The Columbus-Cincinnati Board of Directors for CAIR-Ohio said in a statement it terminated the Executive and Legal Director, Romin Iqbal, after being contacted by the national headquarters of CAIR.

CAIR-Ohio said that a forensic investigation by an independent, third-party expert found “conclusive evidence that Iqbal had spent years secretly recording CAIR network meetings and passing confidential information regarding CAIR’s national advocacy work to a known anti-Muslim hate group.”

CAIR-Ohio stated that Iqbal admitted to working with the hate group when confronted with the investigation’s findings.

The organization also said the expert’s investigation concluded Iqbal was not aided by anyone else in CAIR.

After firing Iqbal, the Columbus-Cincinnati board said in the statement it discovered suspicious purchases from weapons retailers on his company-issued credit card.

Additionally the organization said a package containing parts for an AR-15 was mailed to CAIR-Ohio’s Columbus office.

Providing an update on Wednesday, CAIR revealed that the so-called Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), founded by Steven Emerson, a far-right extremist described as an anti-Muslim activist, had for years been trying to infiltrate and spy upon prominent mosques and Muslim American organisation.

The Columbus, Ohio, chapter of CAIR was one of the organizations targeted, the statement said.

Emerson had faced backlash for his Fox News interview in 2015, where he described Birmingham as a “Muslim-only city”.

CAIR also said the evidence they had indicated that Emerson’s hate group was communicating with and providing assistance to Israeli intelligence with the office of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Let me say that again. The Israeli government was collaborating with an anti-Muslim hate group,” Nihad Awad, the National Executive Director of CAIR said in the update on Wednesday.

Following investigations, CAIR said it was confirmed that the key evidence they received “was authentic and that an employee of a local CAIR affiliate had indeed been secretly working with a hate group. That employee was Romin Iqbal of CAIR-Ohio.”

For years, the statement said, Iqbal was secretly sharing confidential information about the organization civil rights work—including surreptitiously recorded conversations, strategic plans and private emails—with anti-Muslim extremists.

Iqbal has been with CAIR-Ohio for decades. He was hired in 2006 as an attorney and became legal director in 2014. He was elevated to the top position of executive director in 2018.

CAIR is the largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization in America.