Free Republic

The Law: Terrorists have had lots to celebrate recently as court rulings from Bangkok to Madrid wiped out years of work to stop them and raised doubts about treating the war on terror as a law-enforcement action.Last Friday, a U.S. federal judge ordered the release of Sheik Mohammed al-Moayad, a Yemeni cleric convicted in 2005 of financing Hamas and trying to bankroll al-Qaida by as much as $20 million. Al-Moayad had been sentenced to 75 years, but based on claims of improperly admitted evidence, a judge ordered him freed. Now set for deportation, he will likely kill again. Then on...

February 3, 2005 -- Brooklyn jurors on the terror-financing case of a Yemeni sheik yesterday viewed secret tapes of him huddling with an assistant — allegedly to create code words for weapons and ammunition. Not knowing his German hotel room was wired, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly suggested to his assistant that instead of referring to a shortage of ammunition, they could say, "The corn is running low." "A person must be clever," al-Moayad, 56, tells Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, on the tape. "For example, if you wish to buy ammunition . . . 'By God, Sheik Mohammed,...

The ruins of the World Trade Center were still burning when federal agents arrested two men at Kennedy Airport who were found with more than $140,000 hidden in cardboard boxes with honey jars bound for Yemen. For the agents, aware that terrorists were said to use honey shipments to hide money, that slender lead could not be ignored. If the world was suddenly different for everybody back then, in October 2001, with federal agents and prosecutors both properly alarmed and also under sudden pressure to make terrorism cases, they still relied on old techniques developed in generations of Mafia and...

A Yemeni cleric who claimed to have ties with Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to 75 years in prison in New York. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad was convicted on charges of conspiring to support the al-Qaeda network and Palestinian militant group Hamas. At a meeting with two FBI informants in Germany, he was recorded promising to funnel more than $2m (£1.1m) to Hamas. He was arrested by German police in January 2003 and extradited to the US. For each of five counts, Moayad received 15-year sentences, each to be served consecutively. He was also fined $1.25m in a...

A Yemeni cleric who once said that Osama bin Laden had called him his sheik was convicted of financing terrorism yesterday in a federal court in New York City. The victory for the Justice Department came in one of the government's most visible terrorism-financing prosecutions, a case that had for a time appeared uncertain after the F.B.I.'s star informer set himself on fire outside the White House in November. Advertisement The sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a prominent Yemeni who once held a government post in his country, was convicted by a jury in Federal Court in Brooklyn of conspiracy...

NEW YORK (AP) - A Yemeni sheik and his assistant were convicted Thursday of plotting to funnel money to al-Qaida and Hamas, handing a victory to prosecutors shaken last year when the man who was supposed to be their star witness set himself on fire outside the White House. Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed were found guilty on all but two of the 10 charges in an indictment that accused them of vital roles in a terror-funding network that stretched from Brooklyn to Yemen. In a meeting with FBI informants in a German hotel room,...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant testified Tuesday that he wanted to put "the world on notice" when he set himself on fire outside the White House, throwing the terror-funding case against a Yemeni sheik into turmoil. Testifying for the second day as a hostile witness for the defense, Mohamed Alanssi said he had not intended to kill himself, even though he sent suicide notes to the FBI and The Washington Post. "I did not have the intention but I wanted to put the government and the world on notice," Alanssi said. Until he set himself on fire outside...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant who was set to be the star prosecution witness in a terror trial until he set himself ablaze outside the White House took the stand for the defense Thursday, saying he had sought $5 million for leading prosecutors to a Yemeni sheik he says gave Osama bin Laden money, arms and fighters. "I deserve that," Mohamed Alanssi said through an Arabic-English interpreter. "After I chase the terrorist and I bring him here to America I deserve even $10 million." Alanssi quickly laid out some of the government's most serious allegations against Sheik Mohammed...

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...

NEW YORK (AP) - A white-bearded Yemeni cleric peered from behind wire-rimmed glasses and prayed under his breath in Arabic as lawyers drew radically different portraits of him Friday at the opening of his trial on charges of supporting Hamas and al-Qaida. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moore described Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad as an Osama bin Laden supporter who cheered suicide bombings in Israel and prayed for "God to put the Jews and the Americans in their coffins." Moore's voice quavered with emotion as she told jurors they would hear from the victim of a Tel Aviv bus bombing,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A judge earlier this week refused to let federal prosecutors present some of the most potentially damaging evidence against a Yemeni sheik charged with funneling millions of dollars to terrorists. Prosecutors will not be able to present documents allegedly linking Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad to suspected al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan and Croatia, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. ruled. Opening arguments are due to begin this week in the case of Al-Moayad and his Yemeni assistant Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, who are charged in federal court in Brooklyn with supporting al Qaeda and the Palestinian extremist...

<p>November 17, 2003 -- A Yemeni cleric who allegedly boasted of giving Osama bin Laden millions of dollars collected at a Brooklyn mosque could be hauled into federal court as soon as today, after more than 10 months spent fighting extradition from Germany, a law enforcement source said. Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. on charges they gave material support to al Qaeda and Hamas.</p>

THE trial of a Yemeni imam accused of supplying millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden and Hamas began in New York today. Jury selection was expected to take about two weeks, with the prosecution to begin presenting its case on January 25. Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, 56, was detained with another Yemeni in Germany in January 2003 and extradited to the United States later that year. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said in announcing charges against Mr Al-Moayad in March 2003: "The FBI undercover operation developed information that Al-Moayad personally handed Osama bin Laden $US20 million ($26.3m) from his terrorist...

NEW YORK (AP) - A Yemeni sheik charged with funneling millions of dollars to terrorists turned a routine court appearance Tuesday into a denunciation of his court-appointed attorney and treatment by U.S. authorities, accusing his lawyer of trying to help the government turn him into an informant. "It seems to me that he is on the side of the government," Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad said through an interpreter. The sheik said he had been offered money to become a government informant: "They're going to make me a millionaire." Al-Moayad, set for trial next month in Brooklyn federal court, is...

NEW YORK (AP) — A Yemeni sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to terrorist networks warned U.S. agents that "Allah will bring storms" to America because of his arrest, according to newly filed court papers. Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad made the remark last year after a German court ordered him extradited to the United States to face charges that he helped finance al Qaeda and Hamas, prosecutors said in the documents filed in U.S. District Court. The statement — spoken in English to agents bringing al-Moayad from Frankfurt, Germany, to New York on Nov. 16, 2003 — counter defense...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant who set himself on fire in front of the White House played a role in at least three terror investigations, court documents show. Defense attorneys said Wednesday they are re-examining Mohamed Alanssi's role in the cases against their clients, who are accused of helping fund Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Palestinian group Hamas. "Ultimately what I'm heading for is a motion for dismissal," said Frank Hancock, the lawyer for Abad Elfgeeh, a Yemeni-born man accused of illegally sending millions of dollars overseas. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, who filed the...

Terror case dealt blow when key witness sets himself afire By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN Associated Press Writer November 16, 2004, 5:30 PM EST NEW YORK -- The prosecution of a sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaida was roiled Tuesday by news that a man who set himself on fire in front of the White House was a key witness in the case. Defense attorneys said Mohamed Alanssi is a confidential informant central to the prosecution of Sheik Ali Hassan al-Moayad, whom U.S. authorities consider their biggest catch to date in a campaign to cut off funding for terrorists....

NEW YORK (AP) - Federal prosecutors are challenging efforts by the Yemeni government to intervene in the courtroom defense of an outspoken sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaida. Sheik Ali Hassan al-Moayad has been jailed in Brooklyn since last year over the objections of Yemen, where he was a leading member of an Islamic-oriented political party. With a trial nearing, officials in Yemen recently hired a prominent Yemeni lawyer and sent him to New York to monitor the case. The lawyer, Khaled al-Ansi, was cleared to enter the United States. But when he showed up in court...

NEW YORK -- A judge on Tuesday threw out the guilty plea of an ice cream shop owner in Brooklyn whom prosecutors linked to funneling tens of thousands of dollars to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. Judge Charles P. Sifton said the Yemeni proprietor, Abad Elfgeeh, had not understood the consequences of his guilty plea to illegally transferring money to bank accounts in Yemen, Switzerland, Thailand and China. FBI agents arrested Elfgeeh last year after learning that $20 million had passed through the bank accounts of his Brooklyn-based business from 1997 and 2003. He pleaded guilty in October. Elfgeeh, a...

<p>November 10, 2003 -- The Yemeni owner of a tiny Brooklyn ice-cream shop that took in an astonishing $20 million in six years is suspected of funneling millions to an al Qaeda-linked sheik.</p> <p>Agents, acting on a tip, learned that $20 million passed through the bank accounts of Abad Elfgeeh's tiny Park Slope shop, Carnival French Ice Cream, between 1997 and early 2003.</p>