(JTA) — A candidate for state office in Missouri said that no Jews died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and alleged that Jews were involved in the deadly attack.
MD Rabbi Alam, who is running for the Democratic nomination for secretary of state in Missouri, in a story that appeared Tuesday on the Washington Free Beacon website stood by conspiracy theories that he had espoused in early 2009.
Alam in an interview stated his belief in the "fact" that no Jews were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and that the commercial airliners could not have been solely responsible for the collapse of the buildings.
The Free Beacon reported that Alam, a Muslim who was born in Bangladesh, has "trafficked in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."
U.S. State Department officials told the Free Beacon that between 200 and 400 Jews died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001; five Israeli citizens also were killed.
Later Tuesday, the Vos Iz Neias (VIN) website wrote that Rabbi Yair Hoffman, reporting for the website, contacted Alam and presented him with information that showed Jews were killed in the attack. Hoffman also put him in touch with people who personally knew Jewish 9/11 victims.
Alam "offered his apologies and explained that he had been convinced by the material he had read on the Internet regarding the issue," VIN reported.
But, VIN added, later in the interview Alam "still expressed some conspiracy thinking about the World Trade Center bombings."
Alam has claimed to have ties to the 2008 Obama campaign, but they could not be substantiated.
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