CINCINNATI — Ayman Soliman will remain in custody at the Butler County Jail after U.S. attorneys questioned whether an immigration judge had jurisdiction to issue him a bond at a hearing Tuesday.
Soliman's detention on an ICE hold has fueled multiple vigils and protests in Greater Cincinnati, including one that developed into a clash with Covington police on the Roebling Suspension Bridge on Thursday. That confrontation led to 15 arrests.
WCPO 9 News spoke with Soliman's legal team after the hearing, where they said U.S. attorneys amended the charges against him.
Attorney Robert Ratliff said U.S. attorneys argued in an extensive filing ahead of the hearing that they were no longer claiming Soliman should be removed from the country based on material support of terrorism charges as originally claimed.
WATCH: We speak with Ayman Soliman's legal team as U.S. shifts arguments in court:
He said they did continue to use that argument as a reason the judge didn't have jurisdiction to issue Soliman a bond.
Muslim Legal Fund of America Immigration attorney Franchel Daniel said the government has been trying to tie Soliman's work with an Egyptian charity a decade ago to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"It has been a massive game of six degrees of separation," Daniel said. "'How can we connect you to something to connect to connect to something else?'"
Kathryn Brady, also with the Muslim Legal Fund of America, compared the group to SPCAs in America. She said they are individual chapters operating independently of one another and not recognized as a terrorist group by the Egyptian government.
"He was really engaged in charitable work. Local charitable work in a lot of the same ways he served people here," she said.
Brady described the government's filings and connections to problematic groups in the Middle East as "like throwing mud to see what sticks."
"We are, quite often, fighting this as ghosts," she said.
Ratliff described the tactic as one that could be used to deport any person by arbitrarily claiming groups they'd been previously affiliated with as problematic and using it as a basis to remove them.
"You could say, well, no, it's just one case. It's the only time they're doing it. It never works that way," he said.
The Cleveland Immigration Court judge delayed a decision on bond and welcomed both sides to file arguments on jurisdiction ahead of a Friday deadline. Ratliff said the judge would decide on jurisdiction the following week.
In the meantime, Soliman is slated for a Thursday hearing in federal court to decide whether an order keeping him from being transported out of this jurisdiction will stand.
Ratliff said the delay in bond issuance would likely also delay a decision in that case.
Soliman's friend, Ahmed Elkhady, also addressed the Imam's reaction to the violent clash on the Roebling Bridge, saying "he was so upset."
"He wishes for everyone to be safe and causes no harm, and he asked us today if there's going to be anything done, it is to be a vigil, peaceful, no protests," Elkhady said. "That's his wish."
Soliman issued a statement through Instagram to people organizing a protest planned for Wednesday, saying he didn't want anyone to be arrested.
WCPO reached out to contacts at the Department of Homeland Security to comment on the latest developments in court and Soliman's attorney's claims. We have not yet heard back.
