Israel arrested the former imam of Ohio's largest mosque after he was
deported from the United States last week, the Shin Bet internal security
service said Tuesday, ending a four-day mystery about his whereabouts.

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Fawaz Damra, 46, was arrested because of his ties to Islamic Jihad, a
Palestinian group classified by Israel and the U.S. as a terror
organization, the Shin Bet told The Associated Press. It gave no other
details.

Smadar Ben-Natan, the Israeli attorney retained by Damra's family to
represent him, said Damra was being held at the Kishon prison facility in
Israel. She planned to see her client on Wednesday.

Damra, a Palestinian originally from the West Bank city of Nablus, was
deported by American authorities last week because he concealed his ties to Islamic Jihad when he applied for American citizenship in 1994. However, relatives waiting for him to enter the West Bank from Jordan on Friday said he never showed up.

"We waited for him all day and he didn't come," said Nabil Zamra, the imam's brother. "He is not an extremist and we don't understand why he was
arrested."

"My mother is crying. Our house is sad. My father, who is 83, is waiting for his son. We pray that my brother will come home and see his father before he dies," he said.

Islamic Jihad, a small radical group with links to Iran and Syria, has
carried out dozens of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel.

During his trial, jurors were shown evidence that he raised money for the
organization, along with footage of a 1991 speech in which he called Jews
"the sons of monkeys and pigs."

Damra, whose wife and three daughters remain in the U.S., served as the
imam, or religious leader, of the largest mosque in Ohio, the Islamic Center of Cleveland. He later apologized for making anti-Semitic statements.

Despite a campaign by his family and supporters to keep him in the U.S.,
Damra was deported last week after spending a year in a Michigan jail. Damra's relatives in the U.S. said they hadn't been notified he had been deported,and found out only when his lawyer arrived at the jail and found him gone.

"Being Americans as we are, we expect a little fairness, to a degree, to the extent they would let him call his wife and children," said Haider Alawan, a friend of Damra and member of the Islamic Center of Cleveland's council of elders.

Damra was flown to Jordan, and then taken overland to the Allenby Bridge, an Israeli-controlled crossing into the West Bank, which is apparently where he was taken into Israeli custody. Jordanian officials said they knew nothing about Damra.

Damra's brother, a UN worker in the West Bank, said the imam's work in the
U.S. revolved around marrying and divorcing Muslims and lecturing to
prisoners.

"He always got along with all people. He is a moderate. If he upheld
extremistviews, people wouldn't have loved him. He wouldn't be helping everyone," Damra said.