Democratic hopeful Abdul El-Sayed’s seldom-mentioned birth mother worked for terror-linked charity bombshell report reveals

A report by the Midwesterner has revealed that the birth mother of Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for a Michigan Senate seat, worked for a charity later designated as a terrorist organisation by the US government. Fatten Fathy Elkomy worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) from 1999 until at least 2004, before it was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organisation by the US Treasury in 2004 over alleged funding links to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Hamas. El-Sayed rarely mentions his birth mother during his campaign, and the report suggests this may explain why, though there is no evidence she was ever charged with any crime.

Federal court records reference Elkomy 14 times in connection with the government's case against IARA, documenting her involvement in eight wire transfers and five recorded calls between 1999 and 2002, including a $24,607.34 transfer request to the charity's Iraq office. Her brother, Mohamed Elkomy, El-Sayed's uncle, appears in 19 exhibits from the same case. IARA-USA was indicted in 2007, and in 2010 two board members pleaded guilty to illegally transferring over $1 million to Iraq; the organisation itself later pleaded guilty and agreed to dissolve. Elkomy, who has always denied any terrorist links and says she worked to help orphaned children, still lives in Missouri, where she works in mental-health care, while El-Sayed has occasionally referenced her professional background when discussing his healthcare policy positions.