إدانة وسجن كيزان بواسطة محكمة أمريكية .

Quote: A long-running terrorist financing investigation centered in Columbia ended Wednesday when a federal judge ordered two men, including a former U.S. Congressman, to prison. She sentenced three other defendants to probation for their work with a Missouri charity that purportedly had ties to Islamic extremists. Those ties had subjected the charity to intense scrutiny for 13 years. All five men either were employees or associates of the Columbia-based Islamic American Relief Agency. The charity closed its doors in October 2004 after the U.S. Treasury Department declared it to be one piece of a global network that supported Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. None of the men charged in the criminal case, first filed in 2007, were alleged to have knowingly provided support to terrorists. And on Wednesday, federal prosecutors made no allegation that any of the Missouri defendants knew that their foreign counterparts, including officers of the Islamic African Relief Agency in Sudan, had close ties to terrorists. “If we had a terrorist event we would have charged a more serious case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Peter Gonzalez said. Most of the defendants sentenced Wednesday pleaded guilty to illegally funneling money to Iraq in violation of economic sanctions enacted during the Saddam Hussein era. Others pleaded guilty to acting as unregistered foreign agents while representing the charity before the U.S. government. Those sentenced: • Former Michigan Rep. Mark Deli Siljander, 60, to one year and a day in prison for obstruction of justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Siljander now lives in Florida. • Mubarak Hamed, 55, the charity’s executive director, to four years and 10 months in prison for sending more than $1 million to Iraq in violations of U.S. sanctions. Hamed, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sudan, lives in Columbia. • Abdel Azim Elsiddig, 55, a part-time charity fundraiser, to two years of probation for acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Elsiddig, an Illinois resident, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. • Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 57, a charity board member, to six months of probation and 50 hours of community service for violating the Iraq sanctions law. Bagegni, a Libyan and naturalized U.S. citizen, formerly was a teacher in Columbia. • Ahmad Mustafa, 59, a charity fundraiser, to six months of probation and 50 hours of community service for his role in the sanctions violations. Mustafa, a lawful permanent resident alien, lives in Columbia. At his guilty plea in July 2010, Elsiddig admitted that he hired and paid Siljander to persuade government officials to remove the charity from a Senate Finance Committee list of Islamic organizations suspected of supporting terrorism and to restore the charity’s ability to receive U.S. government contracts. In 1999, the Agency for International Development barred the charity from receiving federal foreign aid contracts, reckoning that such agreements would “not be in the national security interest” of the United States. In his plea agreement, Siljander, a Republican who represented Michigan in Congress from 1981 to 1987, admitted that he lied to federal authorities about the charity’s payments to him, telling them that the money was to have assisted him in writing a book about reconciling differences between Muslims and Christians. Before hearing his sentence, Siljander accepted responsibility for his conduct and pleaded for mercy. “I stand before you broken in so many ways,” Siljander said. “I did something wrong. I mistreated the system I believed in and I mistreated my family and friends.” U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey noted that Siljander’s lobbying ultimately was ineffective, but she said he needed prison time primarily to serve as a deterrent to others. “When you look at this objectively, it was not the case of someone aiding a terrorist and it would be wrong of me to do that,” Laughrey said. In a letter filed under seal with the judge, but quoted in a public filing, President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese, praised Siljander’s “exemplary life of service to the public” and “altruistic desire to promote world peace and harmony.” Bill Richardson, a Democrat and President Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to the United Nations, added his own praise in a similar letter. “Whenever I needed a partner to support my work on human rights, I knew I could count on Mark to be there and to commit his talents and efforts to helping other people,” Richardson wrote. Gonzalez asked Laughrey to ignore the lofty endorsements and sentence Siljander to up to four years in prison, suggesting that he had abused the faith he purported to hold so dear. “He uses that as a way into his various paydays,” Gonzalez said. Of the remaining defendants, Laughrey heaped the most time on Hamed, the charity’s executive director who sent more than $1.5 million meant for humanitarian work in Iraq without getting the proper permission from the government. The money went through a middle-man in Jordan, Khalid Ahmad Jumah Al-Sudani, whose ties to terrorists earned him a special terrorist designation in 2004. Hamed, who later cooperated with authorities against other defendants, apologized to Laughrey. “I had no intention for hurting this country or violating its national security,” Hamed said. The remaining defendants, each of whom received probation, became ensnared in the case because of Hamed’s decisions, Laughrey noted. Mustafa violated the sanctions when he sent $800 to his brother in Iraq to keep him from losing his home. Mustafa’s brother had declined to join Saddam’s Baath Party and could not depend on government support. Laughrey appeared touched by Mustafa’s contrition. “You never lied to the government,” she observed. “You never tried to make excuses. You were truthful. And when it became apparent IARA was not operating within the law you cooperated immediately.” Bagegni, the only IARA board member who lived in Columbia, signed checks as directed by Hamed. Laughrey called his transgression a “technical violation” and said he played a “very, very minor role.” “I also appreciate your substantial contributions to the community,” Laughrey said.