Posted on 08/18/2003 11:18:56 AM PDT by prairiebreeze
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday sentenced the head of a U.S.-based Muslim charity to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding donors, though she dismissed prosecutors' allegations that he was a financier for al Qaeda.
Syrian-born Enaam Arnaout, 41, had pleaded guilty on the eve of trial to defrauding donors out of as much as $400,000 that went to Muslim fighters in 1990s-era conflicts in Bosnia-Herzogovina and Chechnya (news - web sites), instead of widows and orphans as the charity had advertised.
"The government failed to connect the dots ... that Mr. Arnaout supported terrorist activity," U.S. District Court Judge Suzanne Conlon said in pronouncing a sentence of 11 years, four months. Arnaout, who is destitute and whose wife and children have returned to her native Saudi Arabia, was also ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to the United Nation's Commission on Refugees.
Conlon said Arnaout's personal relationship with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) dated to the 1980s Aghan-Soviet conflict "when this country wasn't necessarily opposed to bin Laden."
Conlon credited Arnaout for helping raise and distribute roughly $20 million over the past eight or nine years to help some of the world's neediest people, but he betrayed both the charity's donors and recipients by diverting between $200,000 and $400,000 to purchase such military items as tents, boots and uniforms for Bosnian and, later, Chechen fighters.
"Support of Bosnian and Chechen fighters did not constitute an act of terrorism," Conlon said.
One of Arnaout's supporters, Caise Hassan, a former board member of the charity, said the judge's sentence was "by the book," but that Arnaout's prosecution was illustrative of the U.S. government's "rounding up of Muslims" in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has won convictions in the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 and U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, charged that Arnaout reneged on a promise to cooperate with investigators after pleading guilty and that he knew more about al Qaeda's operations than he let on.
Arnaout, in an emotional plea for mercy, told the judge his life had been "a hell" since government agents raided the charity's suburban Chicago offices and froze its assets in December 2001. He said he had been held for 15 months in solitary confinement and claimed an FBI (news - web sites) interrogator threatened him, saying, "'I'm going to get you, one way or the other."'
Fitzgerald has said al Qaeda members who have been captured or become informants have painted a picture of bin Laden using charities to disguise the network's finances, and he tried to link Arnaout to an effort to collect arms and even uranium for a possible nuclear weapon.
The United States has blamed al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 hijack plane attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 3,000 people.
Arnaout's attorney, Joseph Duffy, told the court that the case was unique because of the pressures brought on by the Sept. 11 attacks and that prosecutors had been overzealous.
"The government convicted him before he was found guilty. They labeled him a terrorist," Duffy told the judge during the Arnaout's sentencing hearing. "You would think he was Osama bin Laden the way they treated him."
So what? Osama wasn't attacking us then. We supported Stalin during WWII, does that make his crimes our responsibility?
It's just not fair, all they want to do is follow their religion and kill people.<>
Oh, I see "Judge". And I guess he probably just relinquished he ties to bin Laden, eh? Did this even go to a jury or did the "Judge" just resolve the case.
At least this jerk will be spending some time in prison, though I suspect this "Judge" might be giving some orders that he be released on "good behaviour" if he doesn't cause a ruckus. We can't let terrorist sympathizers serve their entire sentences, ya know. That'd be a violation of their civil rights and discrimination.
Well, at least the Fed kept his word. Interesting to note that he waited until ' the eve of trial' to plead guilty of defrauding donors.Fraud is Fraud is Fraud and you pled Guilty. Go do your time and be glad you're not in a Saudi prison.
I'm confused. Was this before or after they bragged about it and danced in the streets?
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