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Sheikh planned to finance hard boyz worldwide
More info from previous story: A Yemeni sheik facing terrorism-financing charges in Brooklyn explicitly promised to use money raised in the United States to finance Hamas, Al Qaeda and "everybody that we learn is fighting jihad," federal prosecutors said in a court filing made public yesterday. The filing included previously undisclosed excerpts from sealed transcripts of conversations during a sting operation in Germany last year. In secretly recorded meetings in a Frankfurt hotel, the sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, met with an American agent playing the part of a former Black Panther who was eager to contribute $2.5 million to terrorist causes. The sheik said he would pass on money raised in America to "everybody that we learn is fighting jihad to raise God's word," according to the prosecutors. "The way we see it is to support all organizations," including "Hamas, Al Qaeda, prisoners, mujahedeen and such," the prosecutors quoted the sheik as saying. The comments were among the most damaging attributed to Sheik Moayad by the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn in a case that they have said may be the largest terrorism-financing case in the country. The filing portrayed the sheik, who is now in jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial, as applauding and laughing about deaths caused by a suicide attack in Israel. It also quoted him vowing revenge after his arrest in 2003 by German authorities who were working with American law enforcement officials. "Allah will bring storms to Germany and America," the prosecutors quoted the sheik as saying. The trial of the sheik and an aide, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, on charges of supplying material support to terrorist organizations is to begin in United States District Court in Brooklyn on Jan. 10. The lead prosecutor, Kelly Moore, has said the sheik raised money for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups at mosques in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Several of the sheik's comments that were disclosed yesterday came during the meetings in Frankfurt in January 2003 in which a Yemeni informer working with the F.B.I. played a central role. The informer, Mohamed Alanssi, drew wide attention to his role last month when he set himself on fire outside the White House after a tangled dispute with the F.B.I. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-12-07 |
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