Minnesota Somali community leader, Abdihakim Osman, mis the first member of the Somali community to speak up about Ilhan Omar and her marriage to her brother. Osman said it was common knowledge in his community that Omar and Ahmed Elmi were brother and sister. He said that Omar had said she was trying to get papers for her brother but they thought she meant regular immigration paperwork, not marriage.
Omar and Elmi were not married in a Muslim ceremony but by a Christian minister. Osman said she probably did that because if they had tried to get married under Islamic law, they might have been recognized as siblings and their marriage would not have taken place. There has been rumblings about Omar’s marriage to her brother but documents are impossible to find in war torn Somalia, so this is the first hard evidence of it.
Osman said that Elmi was effeminate, wore pink and often wore skirts. Omar had a child by her first husband during her marriage to Elmi. And that Omar lived with her first husband for at least part of the time she was married to Elmi. Omar kept her marriage to Elmi a secret and they didn’t know about it until it was in the newspaper.
‘No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,’ Osman, 40, exclusively told DailyMail.com.
Osman’s revelations are sure to renew calls for an investigation into the Minnesota freshman representative who has repeatedly refused to answer questions on her marriage to Elmi.
She originally said the idea that the spouses were also siblings were ‘baseless, absurd rumors’, accusing journalists of Islamophobia, but has since stayed quiet.
Her spokesman told DailyMail.com that Omar, 37, does not comment on her family or personal life.
‘The Congresswoman is focused on the work her constituents sent her to Washington to accomplish,’ he said.
Omar married her first husband Hirsi in 2002 in a Muslim ceremony that, like many in the immigrant community, was not registered with the state.