Siljander has been active in the insider movement, which seeks to find common ground between Islam and Christianity and eschews efforts to “convert.”

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former Rep. Mark Siljander, R-Mich., to a year and a day in prison without parole. Siljander pled guilty in 2010 to lying to the FBI and acting as an unregistered lobbyist for a sponsor of terrorism. He had faced a sentence of up to 15 years in prison without parole and a fine of up to $500,000. Siljander served in Congress from 1981 to 1987 and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1988.

The Sudan-based Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) hired Siljander in 2004 to lobby for the nonprofit organization’s removal from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee’s list of sponsors of international terrorism. Siljander did not register as a lobbyist, as required by law, and lied to the FBI about the $75,000 in lobbying payments he received from the IARA. He said the money was a payment to help him finish a book on bridging the divide between Islam and Christianity. The book, A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide, was published in 2008 and details some of his visits with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Siljander has been active in the insider movement, which seeks to find common ground between Islam and Christianity and eschews efforts to “convert.” He founded a “bridge-building” group called Trac5, which in 2010 merged with Common Path Alliance, a group, according to its website, “focused on the centrality of the life and work of Jesus (Isa) as evidenced in both the Bible and the Qur’an.”

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