Assistant Prosecutor Threatens Action Against Critics on Web Forum

Assistant Wayne County prosecutor, and failed Dearborn mayoral candidate Abed Hammoud, issued an implied threat of criminal investigation on Friday against posters on a popular Dearborn web forum, “Russ Gibb at Random.”

In his post, Hammoud expressed frustration that the political organization of which he is past president, the Arab American Public Affairs Council, (AAPAC), has been widely criticized by Dearborn residents as suspicious for terrorist sympathies. For the record, candidate for governor Dick deVos recently gave the go-by to an AAPAC meet-and-greet dinner because its current president, The Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani, gave a rip-roaring hip-hooray to Hezbollah in the wake of the recent conflict between Israel and the terrorist militia still occupying southern Lebanon.

Hammoud was angry about what he called the “smear” by an anonymous poster on the Russ Gibb forum stating that the president of the Life for Relief and Development charity, Khaleel Jassemm, was an AAPAC member. The Life for Relief organization was recently raided by the FBI.

It was unclear who Hammoud felt was being “smeared” by the statement about Jassemm's alleged membership, whether it was Jassemm, Life Relief, AAPAC, or terrorism in general, but Hammoud denied that Jassemm was ever an AAPAC member. In any event, Hammoud, in his September 29th posting on Russ Gibb at Random went on to express his low opinion of posters who chose to remain anonymous, (I wonder why?) before finishing up with this threat:

“I do however like to remind everyone that we all live under the law and that writing and posting falshoods (sic) can be punished. We also know that the great technology that allows people to smear others while they hide under screen names allows us to find out who they are if there is a need for a legal action. Thank you.”

Hammoud did not specify who “we” are, but since he is an assistant Wayne County prosecutor, he has access to law enforcement resources the average Dearborn resident does not, so it's a fair inference that he is talking about using those government resources to hunt down and punish people saying things he doesn’t like. If he didn’t mean that, then he was certainly reckless to leave the possibility open.

Bear in mind that Hammoud is part of an extremely vocal community of Arabs, including AAPAC, the ADC, and the Arab-American News, who are stridently demanding that federal law enforcement obtain prior concurrence on all investigations, arrests, or raids on suspected terrorists connected in any way with the Muslim community, including the recent raid on the Life Relief charity. It is not clear that when Hammoud made his threat on Russ Gibb at Random whether or not he planned to clear any of his own threatened investigation efforts ahead of time with the target community--concerned Dearborn citizens expressing themselves on an opinion forum.

So don’t you just love it that the only lawman left in southeast Michigan who's unapologetic about using police powers aims to use them to punish free expression, rather than terrorism?