Sofian Zakkout, the President of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), likes to tout his membership on the Boards of Directors of two prominent anti-crime groups. However, his activities concerning support for terrorists, the belittling of Jews, and most recently, his promotion of an appeal to free a cop killer make him unworthy of such a position and degrade the anti-crime groups, themselves. No doubt, Zakkout’s huge list of outrages has caused one of these groups, Citizens’ Crime Watch, to cut ties with him. Now, it is time for Crime Stoppers, the other anti-crime group Zakkout sits on the Board of, to do the same.
South Florida Muslim leader Sofian Zakkout’s name no longer appears on the Executive Committee page of the Citizens’ Crime Watch of Miami-Dade County website. As confirmed by Citizens’ Crime Watch Executive Director Carmen Caldwell, Zakkout has been removed from the group’s Board of Directors. It appears this took place following this author’s June FrontPage Magazine article on Zakkout and his assault on the Jewish community and the Holocaust, as the Crime Watch site change took place this month.
Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout displays a fanatic hatred towards the state of Israel, while at the same time claiming the country “doesn’t exist.” Many times, this obsessive hostility has translated into support for US-banned international terrorist groups and frenzied expressions of violence and bigotry aimed at Jews and even his fellow Muslims. This has been extensively chronicled by this author for well over the past decade.
Zakkout has used his social media to commemorate high-profile leaders of Hamas and al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In July 2014, after a pro-Hamas rally he organized, where his attendees repeatedly chanted “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas,” Zakkout wrote in Arabic, above photos from the event: “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!” In December 2015, above a photo he had posted of decorated Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, Zakkout wrote, “You’re a Jew, the grandson of a monkey and a pig.”
In February 2016, Zakkout circulated on social media a report claiming that “the Holocaust was faked.” It begins: “The alleged ‘Holocaust’ of ‘6 million Jews’ at the hands of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany during WWII is the biggest lie ever foisted upon humanity.” It was produced by The Realist Report, an anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-gay independent media outlet, which describes Hitler as “the greatest leader in modern Western history.” Zakkout posted the following about the report: “100% pure, unadulterated truth, all on one comprehensive page. Hard to argue with this. After all, you can’t deny something if it never happened, can you?”
In February 2015, over a graphic of deceased Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, Zakkout wrote on his personal Facebook page the following in Arabic, threatening his fellow Muslims and others: “It is an obligation to kill those who left our religion. It is an obligation to kill those who fight our religion and to intimidate our enemies and the enemies of the religion. Everything is from the Quran, not from me.” And he signed it, “Sofian.”
Zakkout’s support for terrorists, Zakkout’s brutal anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, and Zakkout’s lethal threats against Muslims and others should render his membership within anti-crime groups abhorrent and a liability. Yet, only this past March, Zakkout boasted about his association with Crime Stoppers: “Just a reminder! Sofian Zakkout, an executive board member at the Miami Dade county Crime Stoppers. Serving against crimes since 2005.” In May, he posted a Crime Stoppers graphic with his AMANA logo attached to it. And currently, Zakkout is listed as a Director – one of only seven Directors – on the group’s active Florida corporation.
In addition to the terror and bigotry he spreads, exposing the sham of his anti-crime persona, Zakkout has recently advocated for the release of a vicious and unrepentant cop killer.
On May 9th, Zakkout posted on his Facebook page an appeal to “Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin!” Before Amin’s existence as an imam, he was known as black power advocate and militant H. Rap Brown. The appeal came from Workers.org, the official website of the Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that announces its solidarity with the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the heartless Maduro regime in Venezuela and describes the United States as “one of the most extensive and brutal states in human history.”
In March 2000, police entered Amin’s neighborhood looking to serve him with a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear in court on charges of driving a stolen car and impersonating a police officer during a 1999 traffic stop. According to testimony given by one of the officers, Fulton County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Kinchen, after being told to raise his hands, Amin opened fire on the officers, landing multiple shots into the groin of Kinchen’s partner, Deputy Aldranon English, who would later be pronounced dead. Amin was given a life prison sentence for English’s murder.
Terrorism, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, threats of violence, and now support for a cop killer. How could someone like this get accepted into the Boards of Directors of two prominent anti-crime groups? Now, one of them, Citizens’ Crime Watch, has restored its credibility and has ended its association with Zakkout. The other, Crime Stoppers, has yet to follow suit. How could Crime Stoppers allow him to stay on its Board for as long as he has been? It is a crime in itself that this has been allowed to continue.
It is time for Crime Stoppers to live up to its name, do the same as Citizens’ Crime Watch, and restore its compromised integrity. It is time for Crime Stoppers to end its relationship with Sofian Zakkout immediately. Crime Stoppers can never call itself a legitimate operation, if it continues to harbor a menace like Zakkout.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
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