Posted on 03/07/2007 10:55:00 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
Five men affiliated with a Missouri Islamic charity, which authorities claim has links to al-Qaida, have been indicted on charges that they illegally sent money to Iraq, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The five men associated with the Columbia, Mo.-based Islamic American Relief Agency-USA are charged in a 33-count indictment that alleges they stole government money and falsely represented their fundraising goals to the public. A federal grand jury returned the indictment Tuesday and it was unsealed Wednesday.
The men charged are Mubarak Hamed, 50, who served as executive director of the agency; Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 53, a former board member; Ahmad Mustafa, 54, a former fundraiser; Khalid Al-Sudanee, 55, the regional director of IARA's Middle East office and Abdel Azim El-Siddiq, 50, former IARA vice president.
The men — three of whom were in custody Wednesday — are charged with illegally transferring $1.4 million to Iraq from March 1991 to May 2003 — a time when Iraq was under various U.S. and U.N. sanctions, said U.S. Attorney Bradley J. Schlozman. One was expected to be arrested later in the day and the last man was being sought in Jordan.
The charity has come under federal scrutiny before. In 2004, federal agents raided the group's headquarters, as part of a criminal investigation, but no criminal charges were filed against the group or its employees. Its assets, however, were later frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department which claims the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA is an affiliate of the Islamic African Relief Agency, a Sudan-based charity the U.S. government accuses of financing al-Qaida and other terror organizations.
The charity has denied those allegations and claims the organizations have independent leaders and separate bank accounts. But a federal appeals court in Washington ruled last month there was a link between the two groups.
More moderate muslims?
Glad these scumbags were caught. I hope they get the rest of them. And I'm sure there's a "rest of them."
Post-9/11, Muslim students, acting suspiciously, parked and left a car outside the University of Missouri's nuke reactor.
They gave a b.s. excuse about why they did it to law enforcement. I swear they were doing it as a test to see what they could get away with...the local mosque should be razed to the ground and every Muslim student deported.
Instead, we'll get Bush holding hands with Saudi sponsors of terror while chanting "religion of peace" as if he's conked his head bowing to Mecca one too many times.
A policy that would serve us all well!
Let me guess: they got a Federal grant as a "faith-based" charity.
The IARA was founded in the Sudan in the early nineteen eighties. Its purpose was to support the jihadist forces allied with the Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who is still active today and a thorn in NATO's side). Because IARA had a longstanding alliance with Osama Bin Laden, especially in the Balkans, why the hell did it take the Feds so long to roll up that operation. One thing is for sure, regardless of the operation, if the FBI can waste time, it will. Other questions to be asked: What is the relationship between IARA and other Muslim "charities" operating out of Colombia, MO?
There is no such thing as a Muslim "charity".
Mahometanism is all about piracy, theft, rape, murder, and terror.
It is a malignant, malevolent philosophy, fomented in the mind of Satan and promoted by the spawn of Hell.
There is no redemption in Islam.
Neither is there any redemption for it.
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