A Kent State University associate professor is currently under investigation by the FBI for possible links to the terrorist group ISIS.
Julio “Assad” Pino is an associate professor of history specializing in Latin American history and the third world. He is originally from Cuba and has allegedly been under investigation for the past year and a half.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that they were looking into the professor who once called Israel “the spiritual heir to Nazism” and spoke openly about “Jihad.”
“I’ve never broken the law,” Pino told the Beacon Journal. “I support no violence or violent organizations. One man or one woman’s interpretation of events can be very different from another’s. As they say, ‘Haters gonna hate.’ Truth always prevails, and truth will prevail in this case.”
Naturally, Pino suspects his past rants had something to do with the probe. “I can only imagine, given my past record at Kent State dealing with controversial issues about the Middle East, some people may be favorable or unfavorable,” he elaborated. “Rumors start, and that’s the only thing I can think would draw attention from a government agency.”
The FBI assured students that there was no threat against the university, but Pino apparently has a long history of making controversial statements.
According to FOX News,
In a 2014 “open letter” to “academic friends of Israel,” he accused pro-Israel members of the academic community as being “directly responsible for the murder of more than 1,400 Palestinian children, women and elderly civilians.” He signed that letter “Jihad until victory!”
He also shouted “Death to Israel” during a presentation by a former Israeli official in 2011, eulogized a Palestinian suicide bomber in the Kent Stater and allegedly posted jihad-promoting messages on a jihad website in 2007.
This is not the first time Pino’s terrorism ties have been called into question. The secret service said in 2009 that it was looking into Pino “as an individual who came to our attention who needed to be interviewed,” according to theAkron Beacon Journal.
“My current status is that I’m a citizen of the United States with all the rights and obligations that that entails. I follow the law,” he told Kent Wired. “I advocate that others do as well, and I ask others to respect my freedom of speech as I respect theirs.”
Pino has been teaching at the college since 1992 and has tenure.
