Politics

City of Boston gave ‘subsidy’ to bombing suspects’ radical mosque

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
Font Size:

Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended a Massachusetts mosque that made a controversial deal with a Boston city agency that allowed it to buy land at a lower-than-market price in exchange for various token services to the Boston community, despite the mosque’s links to some radical anti-American figures

The 19-year-old Tsarnaev attended mosque at the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Daily Caller reported Friday that the ISB hosted at its satellite cultural center a book signing April 6 featuring British journalist Victoria Brittain, who has criticized the United States and United Kingdom for waging a “war against Islam” in its anti-terrorism efforts.

The construction of that cultural center, which opened in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 2004 near Roxbury Community College, was marked by a controversial apparent “government subsidy” from the city of Boston to the ISB.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which is the city’s municipal planning agency and which is comprised of mayoral appointees, conveyed the land for the ISB’s purchase in 2000 at more than $400,000.

However, the city of Boston only charged ISB $175,000 for the land, with an agreement that the ISB perform other services for the city to make up the $225,000 remainder. The ISB agreed to deliver a series of lectures at Roxbury Community College, to assist the Roxbury Community College Foundation in its fundraising efforts, and to maintain a Boston “play area.”

The deal was later described in media coverage as “an apparent financial handout” and a “possible government subsidy” from the city of Boston to the ISB.

The ISB has raised concerns in the past for its ties to radical figures in the Muslim world.

Islamic cleric Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, who said in a 1995 speech that Islam would “conquer America” and “conquer Europe,” reportedly appeared on IRS forms as one of the ISB’s trustees.

ISB trustee Walid Fitaihi, who wrote that Jews “would be punished for their oppression, murder and rape of the worshippers of Allah,” helped broker the ISB’s deal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Follow Patrick on Twitter