Free Republic

The Law: Terrorists have had lots to celebrate recently as court rulings from Bangkok to Madrid wiped out years of work to stop them and raised doubts about treating the war on terror as a law-enforcement action.Last Friday, a U.S. federal judge ordered the release of Sheik Mohammed al-Moayad, a Yemeni cleric convicted in 2005 of financing Hamas and trying to bankroll al-Qaida by as much as $20 million. Al-Moayad had been sentenced to 75 years, but based on claims of improperly admitted evidence, a judge ordered him freed. Now set for deportation, he will likely kill again. Then on...

February 3, 2005 -- Brooklyn jurors on the terror-financing case of a Yemeni sheik yesterday viewed secret tapes of him huddling with an assistant — allegedly to create code words for weapons and ammunition. Not knowing his German hotel room was wired, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly suggested to his assistant that instead of referring to a shortage of ammunition, they could say, "The corn is running low." "A person must be clever," al-Moayad, 56, tells Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, on the tape. "For example, if you wish to buy ammunition . . . 'By God, Sheik Mohammed,...

A Yemeni cleric who once said that Osama bin Laden had called him his sheik was convicted of financing terrorism yesterday in a federal court in New York City. The victory for the Justice Department came in one of the government's most visible terrorism-financing prosecutions, a case that had for a time appeared uncertain after the F.B.I.'s star informer set himself on fire outside the White House in November. Advertisement The sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a prominent Yemeni who once held a government post in his country, was convicted by a jury in Federal Court in Brooklyn of conspiracy...

The ruins of the World Trade Center were still burning when federal agents arrested two men at Kennedy Airport who were found with more than $140,000 hidden in cardboard boxes with honey jars bound for Yemen. For the agents, aware that terrorists were said to use honey shipments to hide money, that slender lead could not be ignored. If the world was suddenly different for everybody back then, in October 2001, with federal agents and prosecutors both properly alarmed and also under sudden pressure to make terrorism cases, they still relied on old techniques developed in generations of Mafia and...

<p>November 17, 2003 -- A Yemeni cleric who allegedly boasted of giving Osama bin Laden millions of dollars collected at a Brooklyn mosque could be hauled into federal court as soon as today, after more than 10 months spent fighting extradition from Germany, a law enforcement source said. Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. on charges they gave material support to al Qaeda and Hamas.</p>

Mar. 5, 2003 Yemeni cleric charged with raising funds for Al Qaida and Hamas By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK A Yemeni cleric detained in Germany bragged to an FBI informant that he supplied $20 million, recruits and weapons to Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, US officials said Tuesday. Much of the money came from contributors in the United States, including worshippers at the Al Farouq mosque in New York, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing charges against Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad. Amid an undercover operation, Al-Moayad "boasted that jihad...

THE trial of a Yemeni imam accused of supplying millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden and Hamas began in New York today. Jury selection was expected to take about two weeks, with the prosecution to begin presenting its case on January 25. Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, 56, was detained with another Yemeni in Germany in January 2003 and extradited to the United States later that year. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said in announcing charges against Mr Al-Moayad in March 2003: "The FBI undercover operation developed information that Al-Moayad personally handed Osama bin Laden $US20 million ($26.3m) from his terrorist...

NEW YORK -- A judge on Tuesday threw out the guilty plea of an ice cream shop owner in Brooklyn whom prosecutors linked to funneling tens of thousands of dollars to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. Judge Charles P. Sifton said the Yemeni proprietor, Abad Elfgeeh, had not understood the consequences of his guilty plea to illegally transferring money to bank accounts in Yemen, Switzerland, Thailand and China. FBI agents arrested Elfgeeh last year after learning that $20 million had passed through the bank accounts of his Brooklyn-based business from 1997 and 2003. He pleaded guilty in October. Elfgeeh, a...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Muslim chaplain who counsels inmates in the city's Rikers Island jail has been reassigned because of his ties to a mosque authorities say is linked to al-Qaida fund raising. Amin Awad, who was named president of the board of trustees at Al-Farooq mosque earlier this month, cannot have contact with inmates and has been reassigned to administrative duties, Tom Antenen, a spokesman for the city Department of Correction, said Friday. Awad, who has counseled Rikers inmates since 1998, is one of seven Islamic chaplains in the city's correctional system, Antenen said. The department has 23...