The head of a Saudi-funded Islamic prep school in Fairfax County has been arrested for allegedly covering up a 5-year-old girl’s report of sexual abuse by her father, the latest in a string of incidents that have brought negative scrutiny to the school.
Islamic Saudi Academy Director General Abdullah Al-Shabnan, 52, turned himself into police June 9 and was charged with two misdemeanor counts of obstruction of justice and failing to report an allegation of child abuse, according to a police report. He has been released pending trial.
Police believe Al-Shabnan was informed of the student’s abuse accusation on May 12 at the Academy’s Popes Head Road campus in Fairfax, but instead of contacting authorities, ordered the deletion of a report on the incident written by other academy officials.
He also told the girl’s parents to seek counseling for her, according to court and police documents.
Al-Shabnan could not be reached for comment. A representative of the school said “there is no comment on that.”
News of the arrest broke publicly on Tuesday, the same day the conservative Traditional Values Coalition and other groups staged a small protest at the academy’s main campus on Richmond Highway in the Alexandria section of the county. Protesters called for a Justice Department investigation of the academy after a federal commission found violent and intolerant passages in the school’s texts. They also called for an investigation of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which renewed the academy’s lease last month.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report June 10 that outlined a series of hate-filled teachings they said remained in the school’s curricula. The passages authorize the killing of adulterers and converts who leave Islam, condemned Jews and celebrated martyrdom.
Fairfax County supervisors have said they don’t plan to reconsider their vote to renew the lease agreement.
“We would be on very shaky legal ground if we broke the lease because of this report,” Lee District Supervisor Jeff Mckay said in a June 12 interview.
