A brave woman who started out trying to help Somali women in Nashville is blowing the whistle on the men she feels used her and the taxpayer dollars she helped them obtain. From WSMV:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A Channel 4 News I-Team investigation has raised questions about why a local community center is still getting funds after being investigated for having terrorist ties.

According to annual reports, the Somali Center in south Nashville receives $400,000 per year in taxpayer dollars from federal, state and local governments.

But what has some asking questions is how the center’s executive director, Abdizirik Hassan, is still getting grants after pleading guilty to making false statements during a government investigation.

In 2001, Hassan's Nashville bank was shut down by counter-terrorism investigators because they said the bank was linked to Al-Barakat. Al-Barakat is a bank and wiring transfer service that is linked to al-Qaida, according to investigators.

Hassan was arrested and charged with felony illegal banking.

While out on bond, Hassan and the Somali Center were awarded a grant in the amount of nearly $500,000 by the same federal government that indicted him.

The grant came from the U.S. Office of Minority Health.

The grant was intended to help African refugees with mental health, to help stop domestic violence and to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, which health officials said is still happening in the U.S.

[Interesting use of the word "still." When has FGM ever occured in the US before?]

Nana Landenberger was the co-author and evaluator of the grant. Landenberger is a psychologist and member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators. She is also a member of the TAPM’s task force on refugees and immigrants.

“The grant was primarily for women,” she said.

The first decision was to hire an outreach coordinator to oversee everything.

Landenberger’s candidate was a female Somali obstetrician-gynecologist with 20 years of experience, but Hassan hired his friend and Imam of the Al-Farooq Somali Mosque, Abdishakur Ibrahim...

“That was a big question mark for me. How are we supposed to now implement domestic violence and female genitalia mutilation prevention with an Imam of the mosque who is not even allowed, according to Somali cultural habits, to be making home visits to women,” Landenberger said.

Ibrahim’s name might be recognizable because his market was shut down by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under allegations of unusual financial transactions.

The charges were dropped, but Ibrahim stayed in the public light for criticizing Metro Nashville police for not responding fast enough to a 911 call about a desecrated Quran.

Ibrahim also argued for Somali workers fired by Dell for taking multiple prayer breaks.

Landenberger said Ibrahim made it clear that he had no interest in domestic violence or female genital mutilation.

“Mr. Ibrahim stated that domestic violence is really not a problem in the Somali culture (and) that it is a Western phenomenon, an American problem,” she said...