Seriously, thanks for posting that. I had no idea there was a lawsuit pending. Yehaw
Cleric accused of handing $20 million check to bin Laden
January 20, 2005
BY MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
NEW YORK -- Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a major blow in the war on terror in March 2003: The government had charged a Muslim cleric with personally handing $20 million to Osama bin Laden.
But as the trial approaches for Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad, the jurors are unlikely to hear that spectacular allegation. Its sole source, an FBI informant from Yemen, set himself on fire in front of the White House late last year, and it is all but certain prosecutors will not put him on the stand.
''The government has acted outrageously and unethically by trumpeting charges that it was not prepared to prove,'' said al-Moayad's attorney, William Goodman. ''Now they're hanging by their fingernails.'' U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf declined to comment.
Al-Moayad, 56, and his Yemeni assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, are charged in federal court in Brooklyn with supporting al-Qaida and the Palestinian extremist group Hamas. Opening statements could start as early as next week.
They were arrested in January 2003 after meeting two men they believed to be Muslim radicals at a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany. The radicals were actually FBI informants. Before German police burst into the room, Al-Moayad and the informants discussed funneling $2.5 million into the fight against America's ''Zionist government.''
Prosecutors' star witness was supposed to be one of those informants, Mohamed Alanssi. But he attempted suicide outside the White House in November, telling the Washington Post that the FBI had broken a promise to make him a millionaire and a U.S. citizen for helping snare al-Moayad.
AP via Chgo Sun Times