Julio Pino, an associate history professor at Kent State University in OH, has been under investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for a year and a half, Kent Wired reported.
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“Kent State is fully cooperating with the FBI”, Kent State spokesman Eric Mansfield told NBC affiliate WKYC.
“Because it’s an ongoing investigation, I can’t say too much about it”, the spokeswoman said. “The FBI has assured that there are no threats to the KSU campus”. Pino’s wife answered the door at his Kent home and told newsnet5.com that he has no comment.
In the interview, Pino said he is a Muslim who converted in 2000. “They said it was an ongoing investigation and that they were questioning faculty and other students”.
“I don’t advocate that anyone else break the law, so I’ll stand by that statement that I fulfill my duties as an American citizen by speaking out on issues that some people find controversial, of course, but no, I have not violated any laws that I’m aware of or that anyone has informed me of”, he said in the video.
Professor Julio Pino, via You Tube.
Pino has a long history of making controversial and anti-Semitic statements.
More recently, during Israel’s 2014 incursion into the Gaza Strip, Pino authored an open letter suggesting that academics who support Israel should be killed.
He’s also previously 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 web site in 2007.
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“There is no direct threat to the university”, an Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons said, as quoted by KentWired.com.
