In June 1998, 13-year old Assia Boundaoui returned to her Bridgeview, Illinois, home from shopping with her parents to find FBI agents forcing open the door. The FBI , she learned, was seizing the assets of the house’s owner, their upstairs neighbor, Mohammed Salah.
In 1993, Salah (a naturalized U.S. citizen of Palestinian origin) had been arrested by Israel while on a humanitarian mission to Gaza. He was charged with providing material support to Hamas, which his attorneys say he admitted to under torture. Salah was released in 1998 and he returned to Bridgeview. In 2004, U.S. federal prosecutors indicted Salah on the same charges that Israel had convicted him of. He was acquitted in 2007, but was convicted on a lesser charge—obstruction of justice.
Boundaoui’s theory is that Israel shared the information they obtained from Salah—under torture— with the FBI. This, she believes, provided a basis for Operation Vulgar Betrayal, the encompassing FBI probe of her Muslim-American community that she uncovered.
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