Jurors hear sheik's boasts of terror ties

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/1/05 | Michael Weissenstein - AP

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK (AP) - A Yemeni sheik accused of funding terrorist organizations boasted of his ties to Osama bin Laden and Palestinian militant leaders on surveillance tapes played Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

"He used to say that I'm his sheik," Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad said of bin Laden on the tapes secretly recorded in a German hotel room. "I used to teach him some of the Islamic laws," he added. Defense lawyers said al-Moayad made idle boasts to wheedle millions of dollars from an FBI informant posing as a militant Islamist. The informant had proposed giving al-Moayad $2.5 million to divide between terror groups and al-Moayad's Yemeni charities.

On the tape, al-Moayad describes his relationship with bin Laden as limited to the days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. "I sat with him before all these crises happened - a long time ago," al-Moayad said in Arabic.

But the Yemeni cleric went on to describe ongoing relationships with a Hamas leader and other militants. He also talked of his support for the families of Islamic "martyrs."

Defense lawyers said Hamas is a legal group in Arab countries and al-Moayad's expressions of solidarity never rose to the level of supporting or conspiring to support terrorism, the crimes with which he is charged.

"Arabic culture is on trial," al-Moayad attorney William Goodman said outside the courtroom. "Everybody knows somebody in Hamas who's living in their countries. Does that mean you're giving them material support? No."

Al-Moayad and his assistant and co-defendant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, were extradited to the United States after the four-day sting operation in Frankfurt in January 2003.

The defendants join the small number of people tried in U.S. courts on al-Qaida-related charges since the 2001 attacks. Al-Moayad faces more than 60 years in prison if convicted; Zayed faces more than three decades behind bars.

[Aussie Dasher]

What a pity it would be if someone lost the key - NOT!!!

[mercy]

"Arabic culture is on trial."

You better effing believe it is. 'Culture' my ass. More like cult.

[pennyfarmer]

I wonder if these tapes were recorded right before or just after the holy men got a stripper. Why..no wait I know why were are putting them on trial. Its because we are above all the evil.
Oh tell me again why we have to be above the evil?????

Cut his effing ead off.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Just Delicious.....nabbed by a common sting operation!

[ccmay]

I bet this ignorant camel humper, who wipes his @$$ with his left hand and probably had never been outside the borders of Yemen before, had the surprise of his life when he ended up in an American jail.

-ccm