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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News Blogs Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Road Cams Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Distinctly Northwest Readers' Choice Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend February 12, 2007 Click image for larger view Daveed Gartenstein-Ross spent a year under Pete Seda�s wing in 1999, the year this photo was taken. He has written a book about his experiences, which is being criticized by others who were involved in Seda�s Ashland chapter of Al-Haramain. (Mail Tribune file photo) In Seda's shadow Memoir explores onetime follower's year with a fugitive former Ashland Islamic activist By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune With the hint of a possible law school scholarship from his Islamic charity, Ashland activist Pete Seda tried to entice a young Muslim in New York named Daveed Gartenstein-Ross to meet a man at an airport there in March 2000. That man, a Saudi Arabian national named Soliman Al-Buthe, was a fellow director in Seda's Ashland-based chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, where Gartenstein-Ross worked the previous year. Seda wanted Gartenstein-Ross to bring Al-Buthe flowers, show him the town. But Gartenstein-Ross intuitively sensed something was wrong and declined. Besides, he told Seda, he didn't have the $60 cab fare. It was a turning point in Gartenstein-Ross' relationship with Seda, and possibly in his life, Gartenstein-Ross claims in a new book detailing his time in Ashland of "radical" Islam partly under Seda's wing during 1999. Advertisement In "My Year Inside Radical Islam," Gartenstein-Ross, 30, writes that "ultimately, these doubts may have saved me from involvement in a plot to fund terrorists." During that March 2000 trip, Al-Buthe and Seda allegedly were in the midst of a scheme to launder more than $150,000 in donations through Ashland to aid Muslim terrorists in Chechnya. The government in 2005 indicted Al-Buthe and Seda on federal money-laundering charges, and later designated Al-Buthe and Al-Haramain as supporters of global terror. Al-Buthe and Seda remain international fugitives believed to be living in Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively, where there are no extradition treaties with the United States. Now a lawyer and counterterrorism consultant in Washington, D.C., Gartenstein-Ross said he may never know whether Seda's planned meeting with Al-Buthe was meant to draw him into the plot. Also, he remains unsure whether he was far enough removed from radical Islam and Seda's influence by then to be seduced into following suit. "If they had something nefarious for me, what would I have done?" Gartenstein-Ross said in an interview with the Mail Tribune. "I don't have 100 percent confidence in not getting wrapped up in something like that." The 2000 exchange is one of many revelations offered in his behind-the-scenes account of his exposure in Ashland to what he calls radical Islamic teachings similar to those espoused by global terrorists. While at Al-Haramain in Ashland, Gartenstein-Ross was taught not to shake women's hands, to avoid dogs and not to question Muslim literature passed out by the charity — including a "call to jihad" that tells readers to kill those who do not embrace Islam, Gartenstein-Ross writes in his book. As Gartenstein-Ross' seven-city book tour brings him to Ashland on Monday, Al-Buthe and Al-Haramain representatives were blasting the book and its author. In a written statement to the Mail Tribune, Al-Buthe said the chapter's teachings were completely against terrorism. He couched Gartenstein-Ross' book as "shallow and deceptive, obviously intended to promote Islamophobia." Tom Nelson, Al-Buthe's Oregon lawyer and the chapter's registered agent, called the book "a smear piece" in which Gartenstein-Ross exploited a personal relationship with Seda, then "comes out trashing the guy eight years after the fact." "I think it's an attempt to create some sensationalism to sell a book and an attempt to marginalize the Muslim community," said Nelson, a Muslim convert. Gartenstein-Ross, who has since converted to Christianity, called the Islamophobia claim "pretty ridiculous" and said he makes no claims that are not supported by the 2005 federal indictment against Al-Buthe and Seda. "In the end, their chapter had very radical teachings, and they're trying to say otherwise," said Gartenstein-Ross, who cooperated with the FBI's investigation of the chapter, Al-Buthe and Seda beginning in 2003. The book, published by Tarcher/Penguin, is billed as a memoir of Gartenstein-Ross' seduction and eventual embrace of radical Islam while doing outreach work for the charity. In doing so, Gartenstein-Ross paints Seda as a mix of public and private personas, a man who could befriend men like Ashland Rabbi David Zaslow and put a good public face on Islam while privately sharing views that Gartenstein-Ross claims are a theological inspiration for many terrorist groups. He also writes that Seda was very critical of Jews, homosexuals and moderate Muslims and kept two Muslim wives at his south Ashland home hidden from male visitors by curtains. The book also chronicles Seda's alleged disgust for paying taxes or credit-card interest as outlined in strict Islamic law, and in the end he was "a victim of his ideology," Gartenstein-Ross said. The author also asserts that he spoke with Seda shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and found him sincerely distraught and horrified by them. Yet during Gartenstein-Ross' time in Ashland, Seda embraced the same extreme beliefs of "mujahideen" warriors, regularly rooting and praying for Muslim jihadists elsewhere in the world, the book states. "Pete had complex views and they didn't jibe with the ideas of his supporters, but he was no al-Qaida guy," Gartenstein-Ross said in the interview. However, the book outlines the chapter's ties to the parent Al-Haramain organization, whose representatives across the globe have been tied to embassy bombings and other terrorist acts. "Pete was clearly one of the more minor players," Gartenstein-Ross said in the interview. "I have no intent in portraying Pete as a bad guy." Zaslow, who was a Seda supporter who also knew Gartenstein-Ross during his time in Ashland, said the book outlines "two sides of Pete, and I was blinded. I saw one." Zaslow said perhaps Seda's joining forces with Al-Haramain in late 1998 and taking money from the parent group steered him toward the more extreme ideas outlined in the book. "Any time you take funding, that funding source is going to influence you," Zaslow said. "If Pete had been funded by some other organization that was moderate, I think it's possible that he would have gone down that road." In his written statement, Al-Buthe stressed that the chapter's 1998 articles of incorporation state specifically that the chapter stands against terrorism, injustice or subversive activities in any form. Also, Al-Buthe said the chapter stopped issuing the Noble Quran containing the offensive jihad references after 2003. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] . BOOK TALK TONIGHT: ASHLAND — Havurah Shir Hadash will host counterterrorism expert and author David Gartenstein-Ross, who will talk about his new book on his year inside "radical Islam" while working at an Ashland charity. The talk, which is set to begin at 7:30 this evening, will include a reading and book-signing. It is sponsored by Bloomsbury Books of Ashland and is the final stop on a seven-city publicity tour for the newly released "My Year Inside Radical Islam" (Tarcher/Penguin $24.95). Gartenstein-Ross, an Ashland native, spent part of 1999 working for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation's Ashland chapter, which was designated by the government as supporting terror. The Havurah is at 185 N. Mountain Ave. For more information, call 488-7716 or visit havurahshirhadash.org. Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2007 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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