Egyptian sentenced to life for funding Muslim Brotherhood giving money to Abdul El-Sayed’s U.S. Senate campaign
Victor Skinner
The Midwesterner
August 24, 2026
An Egyptian American activist sentenced to life in prison in absentia by a Cairo court for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood is pumping cash into Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for U.S. Senate.
Mohamed Soltan, the 38-year-old president of the American Committee for Middle East Rights, is funneling funds to El-Sayed’s Abdul for U.S. Senate candidate committee as ACMER contributes to Fighting for Michigan PAC, the super PAC backing the former Wayne County health official.
Soltan was sentenced by an Egyptian court to life in prison in 2015 after spending two years behind bars alongside his father, Salah Soltan, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood who served as deputy minister of endowments for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
Mohamed Soltan faced charges for aiding protests against the military coup that ousted Morsi, including funding for and membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, before launching a hunger strike that convinced former President Barack Obama’s administration to demand his release in 2015.
In April 2015, an Egyptian court sentenced the then 27-year-old to life in prison following what Soltan described as an unjust trial, according to NBC News.
He was released in May 2015 at Obama’s request and returned to the U.S., where he works as an international investment advisor and human rights activist.
Salah Soltan was sentenced to death and life in prison in separate trials for inciting murder as one of more than 50 leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood who set up a “control room” to direct “violence and chaos” amid the 2013 military coup.
Federal Election Commission reports show ACMER sent Fighting for Michigan PAC $25,000 on June 12, following two contributions from Mohamed Soltan to Abdul for U.S. Senate on April 15.
The individual contribution constitutes the maximum permitted by federal election law.
Other ACMER officials also contributed to El-Sayed’s effort to become the first Muslim Senator in U.S. history.
ACMER Treasurer Muna Jondy contributed $15,000 to Fighting for Michigan PAC on June 7, and $7,000 to Abdul for U.S. Senate on June 24, while ACMER Executive Director Kristina Blyad gave $1,000 to Abdul for U.S. Senate on February 13.
Blyad also serves as treasurer for ACMER’s Separate Segregated Fund, MERIT PAC, which contributed $1,500 to Abdul for U.S. Senate on June 3.
The donations follow a documented history of El-Sayed supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
In January 2011, El-Sayed penned a column for the Huffington Post titled “Why the U.S. Should Support the Protestors in Egypt,” suggesting Americans should back the uprising that led to Muslim Brotherhood control and Morsi’s presidency.
El-Sayed suggested that “even if the Muslim Brotherhood were to take power, there are several reasons why the ensuing state would look nothing like Iran,” noting the brotherhood is Sunni, which is “less hierarchical than the Shiite brand of the [Muslim] religion.”
“Second, as it stands, the Muslim Brotherhood lacks a popular leader akin to the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran,” El-Sayed wrote under the name Abdulrahman El-Sayed, noting his title as assistant professor at Columbia University at the time. “Thus, the movement will not be able to consolidate power as readily in these turbulent times as their counterparts did in Iran, and will therefore have limited input in shaping legislative procedure (it is this vital input on procedure which ultimately crated the Iranian ‘Islamic Republic’ as we know it today, rather than a liberal democracy run by an Islamic party, a la Turkey),” he continued.
“Ultimately, it is in America’s interests to support Egyptian protestors’ efforts to achieve ‘the ability to speak [their] mind and have a say in how [they] are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as [they] choose’ (as President Obama said in Cairo only months ago),” El-Sayed wrote.
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned just weeks after El-Sayed’s column, laying the groundwork for the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi, who became president in June 2012.
By November 2012, Morsi issued a declaration expanding presidential authority, ending judicial review of presidential decisions, and dismissing the Attorney General, decisions El-Sayed supported. forty-six (46) signatories drawn from the Egyptian-American diaspora
A November 25, 2012 Bawabat Al-Ahram Statement featuring the signatures of 46 Egyptian-Americans endorsed the “revolutionary decisions” the signatories “long called for,” characterizing the prior judicial structure as composed of “remnants of the previous regime,” according to a Grok translation of the Arabic statement posted to Bawabat Al-Ahram, the digital portal for Egypt’s state-affiliated newspaper.
The statement called on Morsi to “purge the media and the police as soon as possible,” and “strongly reject these voices that appeal to America and Europe to take a position against the Egyptian regime.”
The document listed “Dr. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed – New York” in 33rd among the 46 signatories.
Mohamed Soltan isn’t the only controversial Muslim figure to back El-Sayed’s progressive politics, which also feature strong support from renowned antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, who argued “America deserved 9/11.”
Other El-Sayed supporters include Iraqi-American activist Anas Shallal, who held a fundraiser for El-Sayed’s campaign in April, according to Fox News.
Shallal’s Instagram is rife with posts documenting his support for Cuba, its late dictator Fidel Castro, the Free Palestine movement, Colin Kapernick, Zohran Mamdami, and Black Panthers like Assata Shakur, who famously killed a New Jersey State Trooper during a shootout in 1973 before fleeing to Cuba.
Still other known El-Sayed associates include Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, “the spiritual leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights,” one of the largest mosques in the state.
El-Sayed collected $800 in campaign contributions from Ali Elahi in 2017, and is featured in online images with the imam, Fox News reports.
Ali Elahi in March held memorial services for Ayatollah Khamenei after U.S. military strikes killed the Iranian Supreme Leader on Feb. 28, describing the military attack on “our leader” as “evil,” carried out by “the most wretched hands on Earth.”
Audio from a private strategy call for El-Sayed’s campaign exposed by The Washington Free Beacon featured the 41-year-old Senate candidate advising staff to avoid commenting on Khamenei’s death.
“I … want to remind you guys that there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” El-Sayed said. “So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all. Like, I don’t think it’s worth even touching that.”
In the days leading up to Michigan’s Aug. 4 primary, imams in Michigan pointed to El-Sayed as they urged their congregants to cast their ballots for “a legitimate Islamic objective.”
“When Allah will help you with your intention, the change will come,” an imam told a room of adherents at an American Muslim Diversity Association Masjid mosque in Sterling Heights July 17 in a video highlighted by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “We know that Rashida Tlaib – she is a sister … she’s representing us in Congress.”
“So we have a lot of things coming in our side, the tide is changing, we need to take advantage of that and get involved,” the imam continued. “Abdul El-Sayed, if he gets elected, he’s going to be the first (Muslim) U.S. senator in the history of the United States.”
The imam, who also denied Muslims were involved in 9/11, pointed to the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, noting “they recommend to vote to serve a legitimate Islamic objective.”
“This is the fatwa from AMJA,” he said.
Following El-Sayed’s primary victory over Congresswoman Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham, the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website celebrated in an article titled “Abdul Rahman al-Sayyid conquers the Zionists and runs for the Senate,” according to a Google translation.
“During his election campaign, (El-Sayed) focused on calling for the cessation of unconditional U.S. military aid to the Zionist occupation, criticizing the continued U.S. support in the war on the Gaza Strip and demanding that taxpayers’ money be redirected to domestic issues,” the translation read.
“The primary elections highlighted the escalation of the division within the Democratic Party on the US policy towards the occupation, in light of the growing influence of the Progressive Current, which demands a reconsideration of US military support, in exchange for the continuation of the traditional current in adopting positions in support of the occupation,” the brotherhood wrote.
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