During an appearance on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” Wednesday, a radical imam said to be tied to the Orlando terrorist made some fairly shocking statements, including voicing his opinion that some journalists deserve to be beheaded, which he quickly took back. He also claimed to support stonings for adultery, and said he believes most reports of suicide bombings are false.
Imam Abu Taubah (a.k.a. Marcus Robertson) was a gang leader and bank robber before becoming a radical imam in Orlando. He is considered by law enforcement sources to be an effective terrorist recruiter. He spent four years in prison on illegal weapons and tax fraud charges before being released by a Florida judge one year ago.
Fox News broke the story earlier this week that Omar Mateen had enrolled in Taubah’s online “Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary,” a report Taubah vehemently denied.
“That is totally not true,” Taubah told Greta Van Susteren in part one of the interview. “He never registered at our school. He never took classes at our school. I don’t know him. Never met him — those things are totally unfounded.”
Taubah disavowed Mateen’s terrorist attack on the nightclub and insisted that it had nothing to do with Islam, although according to Fox News, the imam has openly and enthusiastically preached against homosexuality.
“That is a terrible thing that happened to those people, 50 people getting killed, and 50 other people getting shot. Islam doesn’t — no one can justify that with Islam. Not using just Islam. There is no Islamic justification for that we can’t even slap people in the face in Islam. You know, there are laws and there are rules,” Taubah told Van Susteren.
He also said that Islam doesn’t “promote” suicide bombings and shared his theory that a lot of reports about suicide bombings are false. “We hear about these suicide bombings,” Taubah said. “I personally don’t believe that all these guys are suicide bombers.”
“What do you think they are,” Van Susteren asked. “I don’t know — they’re dead,” Taubah answered succinctly.
In the second segment, Taubah refused to condemn the stoning of women for adultery, comparing it to the death penalty in the United States. When Van Susteren noted that women are primarily the victims of the penalty, Taubah had just enough social justice warrior in him to concede that gender bias in stonings was wrong, but refused to accept that that was the case. “What I condemn is the concept that stoning is an inappropriate punishment,” Taubah argued. “Because we find in the Quran and the Sunnah that we stone the person who is an adulterer — meaning who has been married.”
Asked about the ISIS beheading of James Foley, Taubah said casually, “I believe some journalists need to be beheaded, but I wouldn’t have done that.”
A stunned Van Susteren said, “You believe some journalists ought to be beheaded?!”
“I only say that facetiously,” Taubah replied, walking back his original answer.
While most of Taubah’s statements bordered on the insane, the controversial imam did have one opinion many Americans can relate to.
When asked whom he supported in the upcoming presidential election, he said, “I don’t like either one.”
Van Susteren made the entire uncut interview available on YouTube:
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