Police Defend Arrest Of Prominent Arab American

DEARBORN (WWJ) - Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad is defending his department in the high-profile arrest of a prominent Arab American over the weekend.

Chief Haddad said he's confident his officers arrested the right person whose name was listed in a federal warrant.

"It was his name. There was no question that that was his name. They were duty bound to make the arrest as we do countless times every day," said Haddad.

"Some 30, 40 times a day we stop people wanted by a number of different jurisdictions in our state, in our country," he said.

Ali Hammoud is the president of Dearborn's Bint Jebail Cultural Center, a popular site for the swearing-in of U.S. citizens and speeches by government officials.

Haddad said Hammoud has already been released and is not a target of any Dearborn Police investigation.

At the same time, Haddad insisted that officers did nothing wrong, saying this was not a case of mistaken identity.

"The information contained in the federal arrest warrant listed the name, address, driver's license number, physical description and other personal information that matched Mr. Hammoud," he said.

The FBI released the following statement:

"On November 12, 2011, an individual named Ali Hammoud with identifiers identical to those of an individual with an active federal warrant, was arrested by the Dearborn Police Department. Once in custody, it was determined that the Ali Hammoud was not uniquely identical to the individual named in the federal arrest warrant. At that time, he was released from custody.

Subsequent press stories linked Mr. Hammoud and his place of business to a known terrorist organization. The FBI would like to reiterate that Mr. Hammoud was not the individual sought by the federal warrant, he has not been tied to any terrorist organization, and he is recognized as a respected community leader."