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Fighting terror notebook
Compiled from Times wires Charity accused of helping bin LadenCHICAGO -- A large Muslim charity based in Illinois has been intimately connected to Osama bin Laden for years, moving large sums of money to fund operations of his al-Qaida network around the world, authorities alleged in court papers Tuesday. The portrait of terror connections emerged in an indictment that charges the Benevolence International Foundation and its executive director, Enaam Arnaout, with perjury. The accusations stem from sworn court statements that Arnaout made recently in which he denied that he or his group had ever provided aid to bin Laden or any other terrorists. U.S. officials said they filed charges against Arnaout and the $4-million-a-year charity Tuesday because they feared that Arnaout was planning to flee the country. A 35-page FBI affidavit details the subterfuges employed to conceal the movement of alleged terrorist cash across international borders. It also alleges that the organization had contact with terror operatives who tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction for al-Qaida. Arnaout's lawyer, Matthew Piers, said his client's arrest is part of the government's continued "heavy handed" treatment of the charity. The government's affidavit alleged that the affiliation between the Benevolence foundation and bin Laden was demonstrated in 1998, when a top bin Laden associate, Mamdouh Salim, traveled to Bosnia using documents signed by Arnaout that described Salim as a director of the organization, officials said. Salim, who is awaiting trial in New York on charges of conspiring to kill Americans in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, last month pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of a New York prison guard whom he stabbed in the eye with a sharpened comb. Arnaout, 39, a U.S. citizen, was ordered held without bond after a hearing here Tuesday. A preliminary hearing on the case will be held May 7. Atta didn't meet Iraqi after all, officials sayWASHINGTON -- U.S. investigators no longer think suicide hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in the Czech capital of Prague last year, eliminating the only known link between Saddam Hussein's government and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Czech officials said that Atta had contacted Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat widely believed to be an intelligence agent, to discuss an attack on the Prague building that serves as the headquarters for U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. But Czech authorities have since retracted their statements, saying that no such meetings took place. Atta is now thought to have been in the United States during the time he was supposed to have been meeting with Al-Ani, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Judge throws out charges against Jordanian studentNEW YORK -- A federal judge Tuesday threw out perjury charges against a Jordanian college student arrested 10 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, ruling that the government had illegally held him as a material witness to obtain evidence in its investigation. The judge, Shira Scheindlin, said authorities made several "misrepresentations and omissions" to get an arrest warrant for Osama Awadallah, 21, and then misapplied the material witness statute to have him testify before a grand jury. "If the government has a probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime, it may arrest that person," Scheindlin wrote. "But since 1789, no Congress has granted the government the authority to imprison an innocent person in order to guarantee that he will testify before a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation." It was not immediately clear what effect the ruling would have on the government's terrorism probe. U.S. Attorney James Comey said, "We believe the court's opinions are wrong on the facts and the law and we are reviewing our appellate options." In brief ...PEARL TRIAL MOVED: The trial of Muslim militants charged in the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will move to the southern city of Hyderabad because the prosecution said it feared a terrorist attack in Karachi, a high court ruled Tuesday. MOUSSAOUI'S MOTION DENIED: A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., ruled Tuesday that she was not prejudiced against the man accused of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks and refused Zacarias Moussaoui's request that she dismiss herself from the case.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
