Author: Staff And Wire Reports
Publication: MSNBC
Date: October 9, 2002
URL: http://www.msnbc.com/news/819305.asp?cp1=1
7
The leader of a Chicago-area Islamic
charity was indicted on racketeering charges Wednesday, accused of fraudulently
collecting donations to support Osama bin Laden's network and other terrorist
groups. "It is sinister to prey on good hearts to fund the works of evil,"
Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing the charges against Enaam
Arnaout, who has been under arrest since last April.
ASHCROFT SAID "incriminating documents"
found in the charity's Bosnia office include notes from the first meeting
to organize the al-Qaida network and an oath of allegiance to al-Qaida.
Other recovered documents, Ashcroft
said, include a list of wealthy al-Qaida sponsors in Saudi Arabia and papers
that tie Arnaout to shipments of weapons, including rockets, bombs and
mortars.
Ashcroft highlighted an allegation
that Arnaout and an aide in Bosnia spoke about how to pay for an injured
fighter's treatment. They agreed that cash couldn't go on the charity's
financial records, Ashcroft alleged, so Arnaout told the aide to create
a new list of orphans to justify the expenditure.
In a warning to anyone funneling
terrorist cash, Ashcroft vowed that "we will find the sources of terrorist
blood money. We will shut down those sources."
Arnaout, 40, has been held in federal
custody since April, when his arrest was first reported.
The indictment said a criminal enterprise
that existed for at least a decade had used charitable contributions of
innocent Muslims, non-Muslims and corporations to support bin Laden's al-Qaida
network, Chechen rebels fighting the Russian army and armed violence in
Bosnia.
If found guilty, Arnaout faces up
to 90 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
SEVEN COUNTS
Arnaout, head of Benevolence International
Foundation, was charged with one count each of racketeering conspiracy,
conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to launder
money, money laundering and wire fraud. He also was charged with two counts
of mail fraud.
According to the indictment, Benevolence
International and Arnaout engaged in a pattern of racketeering. The objective
was to support Islamic warriors around the world by raising funds.
The organizations involved were
al-Qaida and Hezb e Islami, a militant group run by an Afghan warlord.
Arnaout was charged in April with
perjury after filing a sworn statement denying that he had provided support
to terrorist organizations.
U.S. District Judge Joan Gottschall
recently dismissed those charges, saying Arnaout had committed no crime.
But federal prosecutors immediately filed new perjury charges against Arnaout
and they are still pending.
SYRIAN-BORN U.S. CITIZEN
Arnaout, a Syrian-born naturalized
U.S. citizen, has been held since April in the federal government's Metropolitan
Correctional Center in Chicago. He is not allowed to move around the center
without a three-guard escort.
The Benevolence International Foundation,
founded 10 years ago, was charged in the perjury case but was not named
as a defendant in Wednesday's racketeering indictment.
The group's offices in Palos Hills,
a Chicago suburb, were raided Dec. 14 by FBI and Treasury agents, and its
records were confiscated. The same day the Treasury Department froze the
group's U.S. bank accounts on grounds that the group was suspected of supporting
terrorism. The accounts remain frozen.
(The Associated Press contributed
to this report.)
