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Dr. Shakir Hamoodi

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Charlie Dees
Posts: 4134
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:00 am
Location: Columbia, MO

Dr. Shakir Hamoodi

Post by Charlie Dees »

Hey everyone, I wanted to bring to your attention something going on in Columbia recently. A guy named Dr. Shakir Hamoodi who is a former nuclear engineer who now runs a grocery store called World Harvest which sells exotic foods recently was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison because he sent $200,000 to his family during the era when Saddam Hussein was in power and we had sanctions banning that. He was able to document that all of the money went to his family (including his blind mother and a brother whose child died because he didn't have $10 for a treatment), and he has always been opposed to Saddam Hussein. He also, however, was opposed to the Iraq war and gave lots of speeches about it, so he's basically been under continuous investigation since then for what I believe are nefarious political reasons, with the interest of suppressing his free speech. Almost everybody from Iraq was trying to figure out ways to send money home during that era, so there is nothing unique about him there. There has been only one other person ever sent to prison for this crime, and everybody else was put on probation, making it more ridiculous to me that this man is going to prison for 3 years. He was never found to be involved in terrorism or materially supporting Hussein's regime, and is a longtime activist for peace.

Dr. Hamoodi is also the father of Husam Abdul-Kafi on Rock Bridge's team, and they also have an even younger brother who says he is going to do quizbowl at Rock Bridge next year. This prison sentence is a disaster for their family, and right now they are trying to bring awareness of the case to more people, and are working on a petition to get his sentence commuted. If you aren't interested in supporting Dr. Hamoodi, that is fine, but if you are interested in this case, please check out these links.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/201 ... unds-iraq/
http://www.komu.com/videos/columbia-bus ... intervene/
https://www.change.org/petitions/presid ... ir-hamoodi

User avatar
Charlie Dees
Posts: 4134
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:00 am
Location: Columbia, MO

Re: Dr. Shakir Hamoodi

Post by Charlie Dees »

This just got its first national press, because a Newsweek writer just did a profile of Husam's dad for The Daily Beast at this link - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... story.html

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