RUTHFULLY YOURS

Those who serve in the United States military and take an oath to protect our nation are lauded for their service, and rightfully so. Yet, it is highly immoral, if not outright evil and traitorous, for someone who has served in the U.S. military to exploit their military connections whilst taking leadership roles within groups associated with terror. It appears that that is what Muslim convert Wilfredo Amr Ruiz has done and is doing with his work for Islamist groups CAIR and AMANA, and his actions deserve scrutiny, reprimand and repudiation.

Wilfredo Ruiz has served in the U.S. Navy in two capacities, once as a lawyer under the Navy’s Judge Advocate General (JAG), from the years 1993 through 1997, and once as a chaplain under the Navy’s Chaplain Candidate Officer’s Program, which he took on after he had begun religious studies, in 2005, at a seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.

Sometime in 2003, during the time between his two Naval exercises, he made the decision to convert to Islam. He came to the States via Puerto Rico, where he grew up practicing Catholicism.

Not only did he embrace his new religion, but right away he embraced the extremist ideology that is a part of it, leading him to actively pursue a course that is causing death and destruction worldwide. According to corporate filings, in September 2003, Ruiz was the Director of the Puerto Rico office for AMANA.

AMANA is the brainchild of Palestinian activist Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout. Zakkout is the former Vice President of the now defunct Health Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP), a group associated with Hamas that operated out of Deerfield Beach, Florida.

This past July, as reported in Breitbart, Zakkout posted on his Facebook page the following in Arabic: “Praise be to God, each day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel. Your brother, Sofian”

While Zakkout is the main driving force behind AMANA, Ruiz is not a minor player. Ruiz plays a major role in promoting the group’s Islamist agenda.

Not only did he run the AMANA office in Puerto Rico, but he also opened another AMANA office in Hartford, Connecticut. In fact, the web address attached to the Hartford office was the same one used by the national office, al-amana.org.

In the time Ruiz has been involved with AMANA, the group’s website has included various material vilifying Jews, Christians and homosexuals; the website linked to al-Qaeda financing and recruitment sites; and the website prominently featured an anti-Semitic video of David Duke on it, which brought on a condemnation of AMANA by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

In one article previously found on Ruiz’s AMANA website, it is stated, “Every believer [Muslim] should firmly believe that the Jews and Christians are kuffaar [infidels] and enemies of Allaah, His deen, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Believers… The efforts to gain the friendship of the Jews and Christians are useless, as they will never be pleased with the Muslims until the Muslims follow their religion.”

Ruiz additionally is the Executive Director of AMANA’s sister organization, American Muslims for Emergency and Relief (AMER). AMER uses the same Miami physical and mailing addresses as AMANA.

From 2005 till 2007, Ruiz attended the Hartford Seminary, where he worked on his Masters in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. The entire time Ruiz was there, the professor of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations was a fellow Islamist convert named Ingrid Mattson.

When Ruiz started at the seminary, Mattson was the Vice President of the largest Muslim Brotherhood-related group in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In the following year, 2006, she became President of ISNA.

Mattson founded the Islamic Chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary. As mentioned, after beginning his education at the seminary, Ruiz worked to become a chaplain for the Navy, specifically a Muslim Chaplain.

According to Ruiz’s bio, he worked as a chaplain at the Immigration Service Processing Centers in Puerto Rico and in Miami. Question: Did Wifredo Amr Ruiz go to seminary and take up chaplaincy specifically to better serve the radical Islamic goals of his bigoted group AMANA.

Today, Ruiz acts as AMANA’s legal advisor. However, he also does legal work for another Islamist organization, CAIR. He is CAIR-Florida’s legal counsel.

CAIR was established as being part of the American Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization acting as a terrorist enterprise run by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was based in the U.S. at the time and who now operates out of Egypt as a spokesman for Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, amidst two federal trials, the U.S. government named CAIR a co-conspirator in the raising of millions of dollars for Hamas.

No doubt, having Ruiz represent both CAIR and AMANA serves to bring the two groups together, helping them to exert more influence. Indeed, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the groups joined to co-sponsor rallies to speak out about violence in Syria, Egypt and Gaza. The latter event took place in Downtown Miami on July 20, 2014.

The rally was supposed to be in support of Gaza, but it quickly turned into one that was instead pro-Hamas. A smiling Sofian Zakkout is seen on video, as coordinated chants of “Let’s go Hamas” and “We are Hamas” are shouted from the crowd. A reporter was also assaulted by rally goers, targeted for being Jewish (“Zionist”).

CAIR issued a statement saying that it had nothing to do with the rally, but a flyer for the event clearly shows the CAIR-Florida logo next to its AMANA logo counterpart. AMANA’s Zakkout organized the rally, and numerous pictures of the flyer are still found on his Facebook site. These flyers are not unlike the flyers that were made up for the other rallies involving CAIR and AMANA, containing CAIR and AMANA logos.

On November 15, Ruiz participated in the CAIR-South Florida annual banquet held at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. He stood up on stage with the other CAIR-Florida leaders, including CAIR-South Florida Executive Director Nezar Hamze and CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly, who has stated that he believes Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization.

Earlier in the day – the same day as the banquet – the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE) named CAIR a terrorist organization, along with violent groups such as al-Qaeda, Boco Haraam and ISIS.

Ruiz brought his family, including his wife and two underage kids, with him to the banquet. Given the radical Islamic nature of the groups sponsoring the event, one can argue that this was child abuse.

Outside the banquet was a peaceful protest, which this author attended and delivered a speech at. Ruiz came outside to intimidate and take photos of all the protesters.

Ruiz was caught on video having words with the protest organizer. He asked the organizer if he had “ever served” [in the military]. He asked the organizer if he knew “who is a patriot,” and then stated emphatically “I’m a Naval officer, brother.”

Question: Can Ruiz operate under the guise of a patriot having served or currently serving in the U.S. military, while at the same time aiding and abetting organizations involved with Islamic terrorism?

In Ruiz’s case, the answer is clear. His involvement with CAIR and AMANA negates any pretense of patriotism, and instead open the door for questions about subversion.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.