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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Imam Sues NY Post for Defamation

MANHATTAN (CN) - An imam from an upstate mosque claims the New York Post defamed him in an article headlines "Converts to Terror." Salahuddin Muhammad works as a chaplain for the New York Department of Correctional Services.

Muhammad's complaint in New York County Court tracks that of a teacher at his Masjid Al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh. Melody Rashada sued the Post for defamation in January, over the same story, which bore the subheadline, "The Prison Chaplain Problem."

The Sept. 2, 2010 article by co-defendant Patrick Dunleavy drew a connection between four defendants from Newburgh who were "tried and convicted in Manhattan federal district court on terrorism-related charges" and "three imams at the mosque in Newburgh that the defendants attended."

Rashada is not an imam, but was referred to as one in the article.

Muhammad claims that the article "clearly intended for the reasonable reader to infer that the three named imams, including the plaintiff, do or did in fact engage in the radicalization of prison inmates, including encouraging said inmates to contemplate and undertake acts of terrorism."

That accusation in "patently false," and "defamatory," Muhammad says.

He seeks $15 million in damages. He is represented by Hyder Naqvi with Ahmad & Naqvi.

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