At the request of the US State Department… The Brazilian police announce the deportation of a prominent member of Hamas with his family to the State of Qatar
On Monday, the Brazilian federal police announced that Brazil had deported a member of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and his family at the request of the US State Department.
According to the Brazilian federal police, Muslam Abu Omar, his son, his seven-month-pregnant wife and her mother were arrested while entering Brazil through Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos airport and were all deported on a Qatar Airways flight to Doha on Sunday.
A senior Brazilian police security official said, “The request came from the US State Department… The judge confirmed that he (Abu Omar) had a strong connection to Hamas”.
A federal judge in Sao Paulo halted the deportation on Saturday and requested statements from police, but agreed to deport Abu Omar and his family after receiving the data.
A police source said Abu Omar flew to Brazil for the first time on Jan. 1, the day leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in.
The Palestinian ambassador to Brasilia, Ibrahim al Zaben, said no one had officially contacted the embassy about Abu Omar.
“We trust Brazilian politics,” he said.
Abu Omar’s lawyer, Bruno Henrique de Moura, said Brazilian police simply agreed to a politically motivated US request based on the appearance of Abu Omar’s name on the US government’s terrorist watch list.
“The United States is using this list to make life harder for pro-Palestinian activists,” de Moura said.
In her ruling, Judge Melina da Cunha said federal police had received a notification from the US embassy that a Hamas activist named Muslam Abu Omar would arrive in Brazil on Friday from Kuala Lumpur.
The judge based her decision to approve the deportation on Abu Omar’s social media post about his meeting in Doha with Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau.
She said, police suspected that Abu Omar’s father had travelled to Brazil with his family for his wife to give birth there, so that their child could become a Brazilian citizen.
