Posted on 01/31/2004 10:02:12 PM PST by piasa
The president of two San Diego-based Somalian organizations pleaded not guilty yesterday to lying about taking money from a group linked to terrorists. Community leaders and his family said they were mystified by the charges.
Omar Abdi Mohammed, 41, a teacher's assistant in a San Diego elementary school, was described by prosecutors in federal court as a shadowy figure who collected more than $351,000 from a group accused of financing international terrorism.
Prosecutors have refused to say what they believe Mohammed did with the money, but they said in court that, in addition to the $351,000, he also received $1,700 a month from a "foreign source" and traveled frequently to Saudi Arabia, China and countries in Africa.
"His financial situation is extremely unclear," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parmley.
Outside the courtroom, Parmley refused to comment on what he meant by "foreign source."
Mohammed's wife and several community leaders described Mohammed as a well-educated, articulate man who only wanted to help people as president and founder of the Somali Youth and East African Center and of the Western Somali Relief Agency. Mosque officials decided to sponsor Mohammed after someone in the Somalian community approached them and suggested it.
The man who approached the mosque paid the legalization fees and dealt with the paperwork. Fardan said he couldn't recall the man's name. For some reason, Mohammed showed up only once at the mosque.
Mohammed's wife, Haweya Shire, said in an interview at the house her family rents in La Mesa that her husband is innocent and he was tricked into surrendering Thursday when he was asked to go to the federal building for his citizenship interview. He went alone without a lawyer, she said.
"He had studied the 100 questions for the citizenship test," she said.
About 50 Somalis have called or visited to offer their sympathy about his arrest, she said. Six women and her six children, ages 4 to 14, were with her yesterday afternoon.
Shire said she doesn't know anything about her husband's financial dealings but described him as a leader in the Somalian community who spoke good English and often acted as a translator.
She said her husband supported the family on his salary as a teacher's assistant at Jackson Elementary School on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, where he has taught since March 1999.
Steven Baratte, a school district spokesman, said a teacher's assistant earns $9 to $12 an hour. The district put Mohammed on unpaid leave after his arrest. Although mosque leaders said they were upset that Mohammed hadn't fulfilled his obligations to teach Arabic at the mosque, they never thought to call authorities.
"Things were different then," Fardan said this week. "Sept. 11 hadn't happened yet."
Mohammed is accused of accepting money from the Global Relief Foundation between December 1998 and February 2001, about the same time he mentioned to community leaders that he wanted to raise donations for famine-stricken Ethiopia.
"I know he was trying to raise awareness about what was happening in Ethiopia," said Abdi Mohamoud, director of the Horn of Africa, a San Diego-based nonprofit group. "We have to be careful to not get carried away because there could be an innocent explanation for what he did."
But prosecutors contend Mohammed broke the law when he denied taking funds from the Global Relief Foundation, a Bridgeview, Ill., group the Treasury Department has accused of funding terrorism.
According to an indictment filed in San Diego federal court, Mohammed made the false statements during an interview in May 2002 with San Diego immigration officials about his U.S. citizenship application.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Treasury Department has frozen the assets of organizations it believes are linked to terrorism. In December 2001, it froze the Global Relief Foundation's assets. A year later, Treasury officials accused the foundation of regularly seeking donations for armed Islamic militants and providing financial support to Osama bin Laden.
Mohammed's wife said that while he was being arrested Thursday morning, 16 federal officers raided her house. She said she had just returned after dropping her children at school when she saw the officers about to break down her door. She let them in but said she was told to stand outside and look away.
"They took papers, phone books, the computer, floppy disks, bank statements," she said.
Mohammed spent time in Canada as a refugee before entering the United States, she said. She said she came to the United States to flee the civil war in Somalia. Until last year Mohammed's nonprofit Somali Youth and East African Center was receiving grants from the U.S. government to provide services to Somalian refugees. Walter Lam, president of Alliance for African Assistance, the group that administered the grant, said he doesn't know Mohammed well, but hadn't heard of any problems with the center's work.
"I was surprised to hear the news," Lam said. "But I trust in our system, and I believe justice will be done."
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