Ex-congressman gets year in jail for ties to Islamic charity

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-congressman-gets-over-links-defunct-islamic-charity-051102159.html

By Kevin Murphy | Reuters – 8 hrs ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) - A former U.S. congressman from Michigan was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesday for accepting secret payments to try to help an Islamic charity get removed from a congressional watch list of relief agencies suspected of supporting terrorism.

Mark Deli Siljander, 60, a former three-term Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, pleaded guilty in 2010 to obstruction of justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the now-defunct Islamic American Relief Agency.

As part of his plea deal, Siljander admitted he had lied to the FBI and prosecutors in denying he was hired by the Missouri-based charity, U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips of Kansas City said in a statement.

The agency, which Phillips said "secretly funneled more than a million dollars to Iraq" in violation of U.S. economic sanctions, was closed in 2004 after the U.S. Treasury Department designated it as a global terrorist organization.

That same year, it hired Siljander, who had served in Congress in the 1980s, to lobby for the agency's removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of funding terrorism, Phillips said. He also sought to get the agency reinstated as an approved government contractor, a status it lost in 1999, she said.

Phillips said Siljander received $75,000 in payments from the charity that the agency concealed by routing them through non-profit entities.

A 42-count federal indictment returned in 2008 had also accused the agency and its former executive director, Mubarak Hamed, of engaging in prohibited financial transactions for the benefit of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan mujahideen leader designated by the U.S. government in 2002 as a terrorist.

The government said that Hekmatyar, a former warlord who fought against the Soviet Union and later served as Afghanistan's prime minister in the 1990s, supported al Qaeda and the Taliban and had "vowed to engage in holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan."

Siljander served in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly six years, from April 1981 to January 1987. He later ran a Washington-based business called Global Strategies, a marketing and public relations company. He also was an ambassador to the United Nations.

A federal judge in Kansas City sentenced Siljander to a year and a day in prison without parole. Four co-defendants affiliated with the Islamic charity also were sentenced on Wednesday.

The former director, Hamed, 55, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sudan, received a prison term of four years and 10 months for conspiring to transmit more than $1 million to Iraq and attempting to obstruct laws regulating charities.

Agency fundraiser Abdel Azim El-Siddig, 55, of Chicago was sentenced to two years' probation. Six-month sentences were handed down to agency board member Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 57, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Libyan origin, and to fundraiser Ahmad Mustafa, 59, an Iraqi citizen who is also a lawful permanent resident of the United States.

[Girl from Celebes 588]

You beat me. I was going to post this too. This is the orginal link.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A former Michigan congressman and U.S. delegate to the United Nations has been sentenced to a year and one day in prison for lobbying for a Missouri-based Islamic charity that had been identified as a global terrorist organization.

Mark Deli Siljander, 60, a Republican who served in Congress from 1981-1987, pleaded guilty in July 2010 to obstructing justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent in connection with his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency, based in Columbia, Mo.

In his plea agreement, Siljander acknowledged that he lobbied between March and May 2004 on behalf of the IARA for the organization to be removed from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of funding international terrorism. The charity closed in October 2004 after being designated a global terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

IARA had lost its status as an approved government contractor in 1999, when the U.S. Agency for International Developmentterminated grants for two relief efforts in Mali, Africa. Prosecutors said $50,000 of the $75,000 Siljander received from the charity came from unused grant money that was supposed to have been returned to USAID after it terminated the Mali grants.

Siljander also acknowledged that he failed to register as an agent of a foreign entity and had lied to FBI agents and prosecutors acting on behalf of a federal grand jury.

In court Wednesday, Siljander's 20-year-old son Mark Jr. told U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey that while the charges against his father had been devastating, they also had brought family members closer together.

He told of how his friends had turned against him after his father, a devout Christian, had been connected in the media with terrorist organizations. He asked the judge to help keep the family together.

Siljander's wife, Nancy, also pleaded with Laughrey to give her husband probation and not send him to jail. Siljander, clearly choked up after his wife's statements, apologized for his actions.

"I did something wrong," he said. "I mistreated the system I believe in. I mistreated my family and friends. I should have known better. I failed too many people, including myself and my family. I ask for your mercy."

After a short recess, Laughrey said she had no choice but sentence Siljander to time behind bars.

"I came in this morning with the thought that I would sentence you to a longer time in jail," she said, after announcing the sentence.

Although no real harm had been done by Siljander's actions, she said, there was the potential for harm, and that's why a prison sentence was necessary.

"For me, the real harm is that you kept lying to the government," Laughrey said. However, she added, "This is not a case about somebody aiding a terrorist."

Four co-defendants also were sentenced Wednesday. Among them were former IARA executive director Mubarak Hamed, who sent more than $1 million to Iraq through the charity in violation of U.S. sanctions. He pleaded guilty in June 2010 to illegally transferring the money and obstructing the administration of laws governing tax-exempt charities.

Hamed, whose attorney characterized him as a loving family man who devoted his life to charitable causes around the world, was sentenced to 58 months, or nearly five years, in prison.

"You painted yourself as a man devoted to charity," Laughrey said. "I find that not to be credible. When confronted by the government, you lied. You continued to do what was in your best interest, in the best interest of your organization."

The original indictment alleged the charity sent about $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.

Authorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who has participated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Prosecutors said Siljander, who now lives in Great Falls, Va., lied to the FBI about being hired to lobby for the charity. He told investigators that the money he received was a donation to help him write a book about Islam and Christianity.

Three others involved in the charity were sentenced Wednesday to probation.

Abdel Azim El-Siddig, of Chicago, Ill., a former fundraiser for the charity, was sentenced to two years of probation for conspiring to hire Siljander to lobby for the charity's removal from the list of those suspected of having terrorist ties, while concealing this advocacy and not registering with the proper authorities.

Ali Mohamed Bagegni, a native of Libya who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and former resident of Columbia, was sentenced to six months of probation for his role in the conspiracy. Bagegni was a member of the board of directors of IARA.

Ahmad Mustafa of Columbia, a citizen of Iraq and a lawful permanent resident alien of the United States, also was sentenced to six months of probation for illegally transferring funds in violation of federal sanctions.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Girl from Celebes

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Obama would have used a drone strike to remove him from the list permanently

[mawilson 2,133]

Nice!

[slim 1,530]

Obama would have used a drone strike to remove him from the list permanently

Or he would've apologized to the charity.