NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A Channel 4 News I-Team investigation has raised questions about why a local community center is still getting funds after being investigated for having terrorist ties.

Video: Funding Of Local Somali Center Called Into Question

According to annual reports, the Somali Center in south Nashville receives $400,000 per year in taxpayer dollars from federal, state and local governments.

But what has some asking questions is how the center’s executive director, Abdizirik Hassan, is still getting grants after pleading guilty to making false statements during a government investigation.

In 2001, Hassan's Nashville bank was shut down by counter-terrorism investigators because they said the bank was linked to Al-Barakat. Al-Barakat is a bank and wiring transfer service that is linked to al-Qaida, according to investigators.

Hassan was arrested and charged with felony illegal banking.

While out on bond, Hassan and the Somali Center were awarded a grant in the amount of nearly $500,000 by the same federal government that indicted him.

The grant came from the U.S. Office of Minority Health.

The grant was intended to help African refugees with mental health, to help stop domestic violence and to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, which health officials said is still happening in the U.S.

Nana Landenberger was the co-author and evaluator of the grant. Landenberger is a psychologist and member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators. She is also a member of the TAPM’s task force on refugees and immigrants.

“The grant was primarily for women,” she said.

The first decision was to hire an outreach coordinator to oversee everything.

Landenberger’s candidate was a female Somali obstetrician-gynecologist with 20 years of experience, but Hassan hired his friend and Imam of the Al-Farooq Somali Mosque, Abdishakur Ibrahim.

According to a report in the Nashville Business Journal, Ibrahim and his wife moved to Nashville in 1994 after civil war broke out in Somalia. According to the report , Ibrahim helped refugees by assisting them in finding jobs, housing and other government services as a worker for Metro Nashville’s Special Services Division.

“That was a big question mark for me. How are we supposed to now implement domestic violence and female genitalia mutilation prevention with an Imam of the mosque who is not even allowed, according to Somali cultural habits, to be making home visits to women,” Landenberger said.

Ibrahim’s name might be recognizable because his market was shut down by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under allegations of unusual financial transactions.

The charges were dropped, but Ibrahim stayed in the public light for criticizing Metro Nashville police for not responding fast enough to a 911 call about a desecrated Quran.

Ibrahim also argued for Somali workers fired by Dell for taking multiple prayer breaks.

Landenberger said Ibrahim made it clear that he had no interest in domestic violence or female genital mutilation.

“Mr. Ibrahim stated that domestic violence is really not a problem in the Somali culture (and) that it is a Western phenomenon, an American problem,” she said.

Landenberger said matters got worse when she learned that Hassan was under investigation by the federal government.

“Out on bond and has a probation officer and that he’s on a no-fly list, he needs special permission to even board an airplane and that he’s basically undergoing an ongoing investigation into activities that date back to when he was running Al-Barakat. So bit by bit, the story came out and it is frightening,” she said.

The problems increased in July 2005 when Ibrahim disappeared from Nashville.

“He’s just gone. There was no goodbye, no indication that he was leaving, (he) disappeared without a trace,” Landenberger said.

Landenberger said she remembers the day when Hassan broke the news to the grant partners.

One year later, Hassan pleaded guilty to making false statements and was sentenced to two years of federal probation.

Hassan's lawyer, Vince Wehby, a well-known federal criminal defense attorney, said to look at what Hassan was convicted of and not what he was charged with.

“What he’s charged with and what he’s convicted of never involved fraud, any financial loss, any deception or harm to anyone. I’d put it somewhere in the category of a speeding ticket of hunting dove over a baited field,” he said.

Congressman Calls For Investigation

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper said he wants an investigation into why more than $400,000 per year is still going to the center.

“I think its a very upsetting story. I get mad every time I see even a dollar of taxpayer money misspent. It looks like in this case hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted or misspent. I think we welcome the diversity in our community but it also worries me that there may be a safety issue here. This is an amazing and troublesome story. We need to make sure that this is solved and solved quickly,” he said.

Hassan said he did not wish to give an interview and Wehby did not feel comfortable talking about any use of grant money. He said he was strictly hired to defend criminal charges.

Second-hand sources said that Ibrahim now lives in Kenya and there are no answers for his sudden departure from Nashville.