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Adil Imdad, 41, moved to the United States as a teenager from his native Pakistan in 1981. Five years later, he became an American citizen, and in 1995, he moved to St. Louis to pursue a master's degree in environmental engineering at Washington University.
Imdad loves his adopted country. He also loves Islam, and his story embodies the reason the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri is launching the Muslim Rights Project. The program, which ACLU officials say may be its first nationwide, will provide volunteer attorneys for Muslims questioned by law enforcement officers.
Imdad is a devout Muslim. He wears a long beard, in honor of Islam's prophets. His forehead is occasionally bruised from bowing to the floor in frequent prayer. He travels to Pakistan to see his family there, and to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage known as hajj. He's a leader at the Bilal mosque on St. Louis University's campus.
In 2002, Imdad says, agents from the FBI interviewed him for the first time at his job at TSi Engineering in St. Louis. Since then, he has submitted to more than 20 FBI interviews, he said, some by phone and some in person. He keeps the business cards of each agent he has met in a laminated page in a three-ring binder. Each of their phone numbers is saved in his BlackBerry.