Muslim crime syndicate sues accuser for $30m

Christian organization targeted in frivolous libel lawsuit by jihadist front group

Jamaat al-Fuqra, an Islamist network operating in North America and Pakistan, has maintained a presence in the U.S. for decades through a commune-style sect known as The Muslims of America, Inc. and a shell company called Professional Security International.  These entities have perpetrated a series of white collar crimes, especially workers compensation fraud, to finance terrorist activities overseas.

The Virginia-based Christian Action Network’s recent publication of a book documenting the history of investigations and successful prosecutions against employees of the syndicate prompted the lawsuit.  CAN reports that Susan Fenger, a fraud examiner who  spearheaded the investigations into MOA in the 1990s, has agreed to testify in CAN’s behalf if the defamation and libel suit goes to trial.

From CAN’s Press Room on Apr. 15:

Muslim Terrorist Group Files $30 Million Lawsuit Against Christian Action Network

By Patti Pierucci

A Muslim terrorist group has filed a lawsuit against Christian Action Network seeking $30 million, following the publication of a book by CAN President Martin Mawyer entitled “Twilight in America.” The suit alleges that Mawyer, co-author Patti A. Pierucci and CAN defamed and libeled the group by publishing information about their crimes and ongoing illegal behavior.

The group, known as The Muslims of America, Inc. (MOA), has operated as a front group for Al Fuqra, which was at one time listed as a terrorist group by the State Department. Al Fuqra members have been convicted of and suspected in dozens of terrorist-related and white-collar crimes in the United States going back decades.

Forensics investigator Susan Fenger—who successfully prosecuted an American Muslim group in the 1990s on charges of terrorism and white-collar crime—has agreed to testify on behalf of Christian Action Network in a lawsuit filed by the same Muslim organization.

In an exclusive interview with Mawyer in 2006, Fenger said she had a $50,000 bounty on her head, placed there by the leader of MOA in Pakistan, Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani. The bounty was a form of payback from Gilani because he had to finance the defense of numerous MOA/Fuqra members who were prosecuted as a result of Fenger’s investigation.

Despite the threat to her and the price on her life, she has agreed to testify at the upcoming trial on behalf of CAN to help clear them of any charges.

“Susan Fenger spent years investigating The Muslims of America and its money trail, eventually proving that money scammed from taxpayers was going overseas to fund a known terrorist, Sheikh Gilani,” Mawyer said. “She is a hero because of her relentless pursuit of justice when no one else, not even the FBI, were willing to take on a powerful Muslim group with terrorist ties.”

Mawyer added: “There is such an abundance of official documentation of MOA’s involvement in terrorist activities that I am confident we will prevail in this lawsuit.”

Fenger’s investigation proved without doubt that MOA was a front group for Al Fuqra, and that its members were involved in a myriad of illegal activities. Over the years, members have been convicted of or linked to worker’s compensation fraud, murders, fire-bombing, drug crimes, weapons crimes, and more.

In a January 2013 article posted on MOA’s web site, they admitted that a former member of their group “was secretly the head of the hit team of Ikhwanul Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood)” and that former members “were involved in street crimes, drugs, brothels, unemployment fraud, and other offenses.” They claim, however, that they did not know any illegal activity was going on.

1990s Prosecutions

In early 1990, the FBI approached Susan Fenger with a request. Fenger was the chief criminal examiner for the Colorado State Department of Labor and Employment at the time. She was a forensics expert in handwriting, and she knew how to track financial fraud. The FBI agent walked into her office in Denver and handed her a paper with some names on it. They suspected worker’s compensation fraud.

All of the names presented by the FBI were names of Al Fuqra members, said Fenger. “The agent … told my director at the agency that these people were allegedly terrorists.”

The then-governor of Colorado, Roy Romer, was furious.  He appointed Fenger as chief investigator and insisted that she pursue the case above all others.

It was Fenger who put the case together. She was able to prove that Al Fuqra members had been committing white-collar crimes for a decade, most of them involving worker’s compensation fraud in Colorado, in order to fund their terrorist-related activities. The final charges brought, and subsequent convictions, would fall under the heading of racketeering and white-collar crime.

Sheltering the ill-gotten gains of Dawood Ibrahim

Dawood Ibrahim, the second wealthiest terrorist ever, and his criminal D-Gang syndicate sit atop a multi-billion empire.  Much of that wealth has been offshored to the Nassau branch of Bank of Baroda in the Bahamas, according to new investigative reporting.

Firms in Dubai have served as the intermediaries for Ibrahim to transfer funds from Pakistan through the United Arab Emirates to secondary tax havens.  Ibrahim is able to get away with his terrorist operations and criminal financial activities because 1) he is basically supported and shielded by the government of Pakistan, and 2) Dubai can facilitate just about any illicit transaction you can imagine.

The Bank of Baroda has denied the allegations.

Thanks to Shreekant Sahu for sending us a link to this excellent article from the India-based news website Firstpost:

Dawood Ibrahim’s blood-money washes up in Nassau

Twenty years after he paid for the bombs which tore through Mumbai in 1993, killing 257 people, organised crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar’s cash has begun washing up on the shores of Nassau island – known for its perfect beaches, perfect weather, and zero-tax, high-secrecy banking. Ibrahim, a Firstpost investigation has found, has emerged as the principal provider of financial services to narcotics traffickers and jihadists across South Asia – a business pegged at over $3.5 billion a year, which uses front companies to access the global financial system.

Ibrahim, transnational crime expert Gretchen Peters says, has become the, “the Goldman Sachs of organised crime. They’re highly transnational, they move billions of dollars annually, and service a wide range of clients from corrupt officials, to drug traffickers to terrorists”.

Last year, highly-placed government sources told Firstpost, the Bank of Baroda’s Nassau branch saw successive wire transfers of several hundred thousand dollars from Dubai-based currency exchanges suspected of laundering organised crime proceeds. The firms, sources have told Firstpost, included the al-Dirham Exchange named in an Indian government dossier on Dawood Ibrahim’s operations.

“From the bank’s point of view”, the source said, “they’re doing nothing illegal, or even wrong. From our point of view, there’s a real concern: whose money is this, and where is it going”?

The Taliban’s jihad tax

Traditional terror finance analysis has regarded “revolutionary taxation” imposed on businesses and capitalists as a tactic of urban guerrillas such as Basque separatists, and demands for protection payments are commonly associated with the mafia.

But another group is increasingly adopting these techniques in Karachi, Pakistan—the Taliban.

It’s not really new for the Taliban.  (They’ve been extorting money for businessmen and peasants alike for years as zakat for jihad.)  But collecting such money in Karachi represents increased power and autonomy of the Pakistani Taliban, and it’s a trend that must be monitored closely.

This story from the Global Post in February slipped by us somehow:

Pakistan’s ‘Terror Tax’

The Taliban is embracing mafia-style tactics in Pakistan’s wayward port city of Karachi.

KARACHI, Pakistan — In November, armed men from the Pakistani Taliban showed up in front of Ali Hussain’s factory, asking for money in exchange for protection.

But Hussain didn’t have the $100,000 these men wanted.

“Just tell them to go to another factory,” he said to his chief security guard, whom called him on his office phone, as he watched the scene unfold on a security monitor.

Two of them raised their AK-47s toward the tiny camera outside the gate. “You pay us, we protect you. You decide not to give us the money, we’ll kill your only son.”

It’s a scene playing out with ever-greater frequency in some parts of Karachi, Pakistan’s wayward northern port city, as the Taliban embraces mafia-style tactics to help line its pockets.

When four days later, more armed men showed up, Hussain had no other choice but to pay. Before he could hand over the check, he heard the sound of indiscriminate gunfire.

Hussain’s 33-year-old son, the factory’s production manager, was shot. A bullet pierced through his side, ripping apart his spleen and part of his pancreas.

In 2012 alone, police said at least 115 different establishments in Karachi have been victims of what locals now dub the “terror tax.” Many more such incidents may not have been reported to authorities. While other mafia groups are also guilty of such shakedowns in Karachi, the police said the Taliban is one of the worst offenders.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban, or TTP, is an umbrella group of Islamic militants originating from Pakistan’s northern tribal region. The Pakistani Taliban is not related to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has a vastly different history and identity.

Just three years ago, it was the Awami National Party (ANP) — a left-wing, secular group affiliated with Pakistan’s large Pashtun population — that controlled the area of Karachi where Hussain’s factory operates. Though ANP-linked men frequently asked small business owners for “protection money,” many businesses were left alone because they already supported the party financially or politically.

These days the Taliban has mostly driven out the ANP. The party’s graffiti and flags, which once plastered neighborhoods here, are gone. Inside mosques, flyers now let worshippers know who is in charge. The flyers instruct businesses in need of protection that the Taliban is available and a satellite phone number is listed.

The Taliban has taken hold of parts of Karachi with disturbing ease, taking advantage of endemic poverty, a corrupt municipal government and a growing immigrant population. Some supporters of the Taliban said the group’s presence has rid the area of immoral activities like drugs and prostitution, making them more popular.

Security analysts worry that — with the Taliban’s growing presence in Karachi — Pakistan’s stores of nuclear weapons and other arms could fall into the wrong hands. Militants attacked a key Karachi naval base in August 2012 that some suspect houses part of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Bashir Jan, an ANP official in Karachi, said when the Taliban first began operating in the area, the group had little choice but to withdraw.

“At first, we didn’t do anything,” he said. “But then, when our activists were found dead, we began listening.”

With free run of the streets, the Taliban is now cleaning up on its protection rackets.

Akram Mahmoud, a shop owner in northwestern Karachi, said he pays the Taliban about $30 every month. The sum is an entire year’s worth of tuition for his son, who is in elementary school.

Although many businesses report extortion to the Karachi police, rarely do they respond. One Karachi police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said police are hesitant to even enter large parts of northern Karachi.

“If someone is stupid enough to report a crime, the Karachi police simply file a report. Too many security personnel have already died just for walking into these streets,” he said.

City officials and political activists say that to effectively fight the Taliban in Karachi, a strong police force is vital.

“Instead the police sit and cower inside their stations. We need a better solution, a better police force,” said an ANP official.

But police officers insist they are no match for the Taliban…

Read the rest of the article here.  Declaring martial law has been rumored as a possible solution to this problem.

Terrorist front group banned from skin trade

Pakistani officials rule that Lashkar-e-Taiba’s front charity cannot profit from animal hides

Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charitable front group for the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, from buying and selling animal hides.  The leather trade has been an extremely lucrative business for jihadist entities, particularly in Punjab.

Authorities cited UN sanctions against JuD in 2008 as the basis for the ban. From the Indian Express last month:

JuD cannot collect Eid-ul-Azha hides: Pakistan authorities to court

Pakistani authorities have informed a court that the Jamaat-ud-Dawah it is not allowed to collect the hides of sacrificial animals as the group was listed as a terrorist organisation under a United Nations Security Council resolution in 2008.

The Punjab Home Department informed the Lahore High Court yesterday that the JuD was barred from collecting hides on the instructions of the federal Interior Ministry.

The instructions were part of security arrangements for the Eid-ul-Azha, when a large number of animals are sacrificed. Every year, the JuD collects thousands of hides and sells them to tanneries to raise funds for its activities.

The JuD was named a front for the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba on December 10, 2008 in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.

In a written reply submitted to Chief Justice Umar Atta Bandial, the Home Department said the Interior Ministry had issued a code of conduct for collecting the hides of sacrificial animals.

Under this code, all organisations are required to obtain a certificate from the district administration chief and the district police chief for collecting hides. It said the Interior Ministry had issued a list of proscribed organisations and said that they should not be allowed to collect hides.

Prior Money Jihad coverage of Hizbul Mujahideen, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and Jaish Muhammad using the leather trade to fund militant operations against India is available here.

Turkish national convicted of funding jihad

Cartoon from the Orange County Weekly

Oytun Ayse Mihalik made three separate money transfers to Pakistan to finance terrorism.  The former CVS pharmacy employee could have been prosecuted on three separate counts of material support for terrorism on that basis.

However, the transfers were lumped into one charge for which Mihalik pleaded guilty, and rather than receiving the maximum 15-year sentence, or the 12-year sentence sought by prosecutors, she was only sentenced to five years in prison.

She’ll be back on the streets before we know it.  From the Los Angeles Times (with a tip of the hat to Dr. Hayat Alvi for tweeting out a separate news link on the sentencing)

O.C. woman sentenced to five years for sending funds to terrorists

By Victoria Kim

March 29, 2013

An Orange County pharmacist who admitted to wiring $2,050 to Pakistan to be used to fund terrorist activities was sentenced Friday to five years in federal prison.

Oytun Ayse Mihalik, 40, a Turkish national and permanent U.S. resident, pleaded guilty in August to one count of providing material support to terrorists after sending three money orders over a month in late 2010 and early 2011.

Mihalik used a false name, “Cindy Palmer,” to send the funds, according to authorities.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a 12-year sentence for the woman, alleging she provided the money to a man she met through a website, believing it was going to be used to harm U.S. troops.

She was motivated by a “desire to participate in jihad” and knew the sum was “more than enough to finance an entire operation against the United States military forces,” they wrote, citing her email communications with the man.

They also noted that she had created a “favorite” tab for “The Al Qaeda Manual” on her laptop and had searched the terms “true jihad” and “Jihad in Afghanistan” on her Web browser in “privacy” mode.

Her defense attorneys argued she had been manipulated in a time of vulnerability when her marriage was falling apart after a miscarriage. She accessed the website out of worry for her brother, who was going on a pilgrimage to Pakistan, they contended in court filings. They asked for a 24-month sentence.

The woman appears to have come to authorities’ attention after her husband called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleging she had married him under “false pretenses” after she moved out of their home for a trial separation. She became radicalized after a monthlong trip to Turkey two years into their marriage, he alleged.

“I go, ‘Listen, did you marry just me for my citizenship and do you want to harm someone here?’ And she looked at me blank and she said, ‘If I have to kill people for Allah, I will,’” the husband said in his initial report, according to a transcript filed with court papers.

See previous Money Jihad coverage of Oytun Ayse Mihalik and her use of Western Union here.

Ex-banker: Taliban funded by sharia finance

Muhammad Aamir, a retired Pakistani banker, admits that, “It is true that Taliban militants receive financial support through the Islamic banking system, but there is no proof because these illegal transactions are never properly investigated,” according to an article from Central Asia Online last week.

Muhammad Junaid, a banker currently working in Peshawar, says he is familiar with three account holders who work closely with terrorists receive over $50K monthly from Islamic banks.

Some financial sector employees disagree, but the evidence that sharia banks finance jihad has grown to the point where it is impossible to ignore.  Thanks to meankitteh for sending in this article, which frankly understates the scope of the problem:

Islamic banking: A conduit for terror funding?

Opinions differ on whether the financial network is being misused to funnel support to militants, but the system does have loopholes that would allow for it.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai

2013-03-27

PESHAWAR – Some worry that the Islamic banking model is open to potential misuse by those involved in funding terrorist activities, but opinions differ on whether the financial network is directly involved in such schemes.

The dividing line for the opinions seems to come down to how one is involved in the business.

“It is true that Taliban militants receive financial support through the Islamic banking system, but there is no proof because these illegal transactions are never properly investigated,” Muhammad Aamir, a retired banker, told Central Asia Online.

But Adnan Rasool, an Islamabad-based Islamic banking specialist with a state-owned bank, said it is “totally wrong” to say that the system helps terrorism.

“In Pakistan the share of Islamic banking has risen to 10%, which shows the public confidence in the system,” Adnan said. “We have more than 1,000 dedicated Islamic banks as well as more than 700 Islamic banking counters operated in conventional banks.”

Allegations arose in early 2001 that the system aided terrorism, but authorities couldn’t prove any of them, Adnan said, adding that Islamic banking has come of age worldwide and in Pakistan, where it has financed huge projects that benefit the people.

Why Islamic banking is vulnerable to terrorist misuse

Islamic banking, which began in the early 1970s, is a financial system that involves making loans without charging interest, in accordance with Sharia law. It is worth about US $2 trillion (Rs. 197 trillion) worldwide and has posted an annual growth rate of 15%.

Terrorists have long relied on various channels to finance their activities and Islamic banking is one option that terror supporters have used in the past, Aamir said, describing an example of suspected terror funding.

A resident of Hangu District received “a hefty amount through Islamic banks from different sources in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries” in 2001, he said. “He was a common man who disappeared after the 9/11 incidents in New York and Washington.”

Police briefly investigated the case, he said, but nothing came of it.

Another banker also has suspicions about the system.

Muhammad Junaid, an employee of a private bank in Peshawar, agreed with the notion that Islamic banking is key to financing terror bids in Pakistan and elsewhere but said these illegal acts aren’t easily traceable.

“For instance, I knew three account-holders in our bank who each received about Rs. 5m (US $50,829) every month from some Muslim countries,” said Junaid. “The men – pretending to be getting the money for construction of mosques and religious seminaries – seemed to be hand-in-glove with terrorists.”

That is indicative of something suspicious, he said, because “one cannot believe that simple people have such frequent financial transactions through banks. But … there are no complaints from any quarter.” But again, proof is scant and Adnan stands by his industry.

“Islam strictly forbids terrorism in all its form and therefore Islamic banking seeks to promote Islamic values,” he said. “We have an internal system in Islamic banking that prevents the illegal investments and transactions; therefore, it is impossible to send the money through this network to terrorists.”

Islamic banking system has loopholes

Islamic banking was designed to follow Islamic values, Junaid said. In accordance with Sharia law, it is expected to avoid interest-based transactions and unethical practices while it helps boost the economy.

However, loopholes make it difficult to identify illegal transactions in the system, he said.

Pakistan began implementing the system in 1978, economist Jalal Khan, at the Institute of Management Studies at the University of Peshawar, said. Early measures included doing away with interest from the operations of specialised financial institutions – including the House Building Finance Co. Ltd., Investment Corporation of Pakistan and National Investment Trust Ltd. in July 1979 – a practice that extended to commercial banks in the 1980s.

The premise of interest-free loans, even though it goes along with Islamic ideals, has not protected the system from suspicion of links to terror funding, Shah Jehan, a banker at a private financial institution, told Central Asia Online.

Hawala, an informal system that allows fund transfers without much regulatory control, also was allegedly linked to terror financing, he said.

“Despite a hue and cry by global leaders spearheading the war against jihadist groups, new legal modes of transactions [including wire transfers] that have now replaced the hawala system are part of the Islamic banking system and have been lifelines for terrorists,” Jehan said…

Khan gave money, advice on lethal attack

Following in the ignoble tradition of Al Haramain, another jihadist has transferred funds from Oregon overseas to fund terrorism.  Portland’s Reaz Qadir Khan allegedly contributed $2,500 toward a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 40, injured 300.  Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Kristian Foden-Vencil has this one-minute Mar. 6 report:

BCCI bankrolled the father of the “Islamic bomb”

Founded by a Pakistani banker with prominent Gulf investors, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) became a depository of wealth acquired by Arab officials during the oil embargo against the U.S. in the 1970s.

BCCI took their profits and invested in fraudulent enterprises.  According to History Commons, BCCI also set up a charitable foundation in the 1980s which gave most of its money to A.Q. Khan, the scientist created the first nuclear bomb ever possessed by an Islamic country—Pakistan:

1981 and After: BCCI Charity Front Funnels Money to A. Q. Khan’s Nuclear Program

In 1981, the criminal BCCI bank sets up a charity called the BCCI Foundation. Pakistani Finance Minister Ghulam Ishaq Khan grants it tax-free status, and it supposedly spends millions on charitable purposes. Khan serves as the chairman of the foundation while also running the books for A. Q. Khan’s Kahuta Research Laboratories. Ghulam Ishaq Khan will be president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. (Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 126-127) BCCI founder Agha Hasan Abedi announces that he will donate up to 90% of BCCI’s profits to charity through the foundation, and he develops a positive reputation from a few well-publicized charitable donations. But the charity is actually used to shelter BCCI profits. Most of the money it raises goes to A. Q. Khan’s nuclear program and not to charitable causes. For instance, in 1987 it gives a single $10 million donation to an institute headed by A. Q. Khan. Millions more go to investments in a front company owned by BCCI figure Ghaith Pharaon. (Beaty and Gwynne, 1993, pp. 290-291) An investigation by the Los Angeles Times will reveal that less than 10% of the money went to charity. (Los Angeles Times, 8/9/1991) BCCI uses other means to funnel even more money into A. Q. Khan’s nuclear program.

Later on, Khan sold nuclear secrets to rogue regimes to develop their own nuclear programs.  BCCI has also been implicated in financial deals with Osama Bin Laden, and Khan’s men may have shared nuclear information with Al Qaeda.

Just a few weeks ago, Khan, who formed a political party of his own, announced a coalition with Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.  What could go wrong?

Thanks to Twitter user @RushetteNY for suggesting coverage related to this topic.

Hafiz Khan convicted for funding the Taliban

Two imams in the U.S. have been convicted of terrorist financing within the span of two weeks.  First there was Imam Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud in San Diego who conspired with fellow Somali immigrants in America to fund al-Shabaab in East Africa, and now Hafiz Khan, the Florida-based imam who transferred money to the Pakistani Taliban.

Given the extensive wiretap and documentary bank evidence against Imam Khan, the case never looked good for him.  When his defense attorneys blundered by putting Khan on the witness stand to deliver listless tirades and tortured explanations of why he said what he said, it looked even worse.

First his lawyers said that Khan was mentally incompetent, but the court didn’t buy that.  Then their story was that Khan provided charitable relief and made investments in a potato chip company in Pakistan.  Then the story changed again to Khan purporting that he had lied to the Taliban in his wiretapped conversations, and that he only offered them money to get more money in return.  The plan was supposedly to give the Taliban $50,000 now to get $1 million back from them later, which would represent an unbelievable 1,900% return on his “investment.”

Did it occur to Mr. Khan or his defense team that there is no legal distinction between giving money to a terrorist organization to wage jihad versus giving money to a terrorist organization as an investment?  In any case, the defense was not plausible, and Khan could not explain his taped statements wishing death upon U.S. troops.  Allowing him to testify in his own defense was a disaster.

Real people have been killed or injured and property has been destroyed in Pakistan because of the TTP, and the TTP was enriched because this man collected money fellow Islamists in Florida.  Khan, an old man, faces a maximum 60 year sentence.  He will surely die in prison.  At least he’ll have the opportunity to say good-bye to his family—an opportunity the TTP’s victims never had.

From the Miami Herald on Mar. 4:

Florida imam convicted in Pakistani Taliban case

By CURT ANDERSON

AP Legal Affairs Writer

MIAMI — An elderly Muslim cleric has been convicted by a Miami federal court jury of providing thousands of dollars in financial support to the Pakistani Taliban.

The 12-person jury returned its verdict Monday after the two-month trial of Hafiz Khan. The 77-year-old imam at a Miami mosque was found guilty of two conspiracy counts and two counts of providing material support to terrorists.

Each charge carries a potential 15-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors built their case largely around hundreds of FBI recordings of conversations in which Khan expressed support for Taliban attacks and discussed sending about $50,000 to Pakistan.

Khan testified the money was for family, charity and business reasons. Khan also said he lied to an FBI informant about Taliban support in hopes of obtaining $1 million from him.

Saudi Arabia funds Lashkar-e-Jhangvi

The Sunni radical Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which is responsible for attacks against Shia Muslims, is funded by Saudi Arabia.  LeJ’s parent organization, Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP), feeds at the same trough.

From Reuters last fall:

THE SAUDI CONNECTION

In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ’s birthplace, SSP leader Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi describes what he says are Tehran’s grand designs. Iranian consular offices and cultural centers, he alleges, are actually a front for its intelligence agencies.

“If Iranian interference continues it will destroy this country,” said Ludhianvi in an interview in his home. The state provides him with armed guards, fearful any harm done to him could trigger sectarian bloodletting.

The Iranian embassy in Islamabad, asked for a response to that allegation, issued a statement denouncing sectarian violence.

“What is happening today in the name of sectarianism has nothing to do with Muslims and their ideologies,” it said.

Ludhianvi insisted he was just a politician. “I would like to tell you that I am not a murderer, I am not a killer, I am not a terrorist. We are a political party.”

After a meal of chicken, curry and spinach, Ludhianvi and his aides stood up to warmly welcome a visitor: Saudi Arabia-based cleric Malik Abdul Haq al-Meqqi.

A Pakistani cleric knowledgeable about Sunni groups described Meqqi as a middleman between Saudi donors and intelligence agencies and the LeJ, the SSP and other groups.

“Of course, Saudi Arabia supports these groups. They want to keep Iranian influence in check in Pakistan, so they pay,” the Pakistani cleric said. His account squared with that of a Pakistani intelligence agent, who said jailed militants had confessed that LeJ received Saudi funding…

A Stanford University study also said that, “LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran’s revolutionary Shiism,” (h/t Land Destroyer).

This is especially relevant now that LeJ’s attacks on Shias are becoming more frequent and lethal.  They just killed 81 people in Quetta and another 100 people last month.  LeJ and SSP are also gaining political representation in the Punjab and National Assembly (h/t Hayat Alvi).

Terror financing imam claims to be potato chip investor

We’ve heard many far-fetched defenses in terrorist financing cases—mostly false claims of charity for the poor—but this one takes the cake.  Or, more precisely, the potato chip.

How will South Florida imam Hafiz Khan’s defense lawyers explain Khan’s tape recorded statement that “Right now I have about 100,000 Pakistani rupees for the Taliban.  People have given me (money) in small amounts, I have given some from my side.”  Is “Taliban” the unfortunate name of the potato chip company, perhaps?

Witness testifies from Pakistan that Florida imam’s money was not for Taliban terrorists

MIAMI – Testifying via video from Pakistan, a man accused by the U.S. of conspiring with an elderly Miami-based Muslim cleric to funnel thousands of dollars to Taliban terrorists insisted Monday the money was for innocent purposes, including a potato chip factory run by the cleric’s son-in-law.

Ali Rehman was the first of as many as 11 witnesses expected to testify from an Islamabad hotel in defense of 77-year-old Hafiz Khan, who faces four terrorism support and conspiracy counts. Rehman is named in the same indictment and refused to come to the U.S. Other witnesses were unable to get U.S. visas in time.

Rehman said he handled three separate $10,000 transactions for Khan in 2008 and 2009. Most of the money, he testified, went to Anayat Ullah, who is married to Khan’s daughter Husna and started the potato chip business with his father-in-law as an investor. Rehman said he has known Ullah since they were children in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and wanted to do him a favor.

“That favor was that his father was sending him some money, and I used to deliver it to him or sent it to him,” said Rehman.

He spoke in Pashto that was translated into English for the 12-person jury watching him on flat-screen televisions.

Rehman kept a three-page ledger detailing most of the transactions, which jurors were shown. “I was just the middle man to give the money to him.”

Ullah also used his father’s money to buy a vehicle for the factory and to buy a house, Rehman said.

Rehman said he and Khan disagreed with the Taliban’s tactics of using violence and force to impose their version of Muslim law. Rehman said he was personally threatened by Taliban fighters who ordered him to remove products containing women’s pictures from a cosmetics store he owns.

“They came to my store one day and said, `You should remove these pictures.’ They also slapped me,” he said. “They said, `If you continue to sell this, it will not be good for you.’”

Rehman said he kept putting the Taliban off and eventually they stopped coming around.

Jurors were also played tape of an intercepted phone call between Rehman and Khan in which they are discussing financing of a road widening project. Khan suggested at one point that Rehman sell some trees he had cut down to help cover the cost…

A road widening project?  Wouldn’t that be the responsibility of government officials?  Sounds like code.