Ohio's Homeland Security division has fired multicultural relations officer Omar Alomari after learning he hid a past sexual harassment claim when he applied for the job, and then lied to state officials investigating his background.
In April, the website "The Jawa Report" uncovered information that Alomari had been fired from a previous job at Columbus State Community College for violating the school's sexual harassment policy. That prompted an internal investigation. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Alomari spent six years on the faculty, yet the state report found he did not include it on his original application.
The Homeland Security office is part of Ohio's Department of Public Safety. Alomari, 60, served as the department's community engagement director and was paid $76, 107. Records released by the Ohio Department of Public Safety Friday show Alomari was fired for:
"Dishonesty … when you applied for your current position with the Ohio Department of Public Safety/Homeland Security you failed to disclose your previous employment with Columbus State College on your application. You also failed to disclose that employment during your background investigation. When questioned about this during the administrative investigation you gave false information."
Just a month earlier, Alomari represented his department in a hearing before the U.S. House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment. Alomari testified about his efforts to combat radicalization. But those efforts included a 40-page Culture Guide related to Arabic and Islamic Culture. It defined jihad as the benign pursuit of personal betterment and said its meaning as a holy war is a European invention, spread in the West. In addition, Alomari wrote "Agents of Radicalization," a two-page brochure that explained terrorism is an expected societal reaction of the once proud and thriving Arab/Muslim culture, now in decline and conflict because of the stronger and aggressive West.
M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, slammed the brochure as inaccurate, with "bizarre revisionist history" and "classic Islamist propaganda." The brochure listed seven Muslim organizations the Ohio agency works with. All the groups have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or have their own history of extremist rhetoric, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim American Society.
A spokeswoman at the Ohio Department of Public Safety confirmed a Jawa Report article which said the department stopped using the brochures. Between March 2007 and April 2008, the department spent $239 printing 470 copies of "Agents of Radicalization."