Mo. Indictment: 5 Sent Money to Iraq (AP)

[Eugene]

Mo. Indictment: 5 Sent Money to Iraq

By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; 5:27 PM

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Four associates of a Missouri-based Islamic charity and a fifth
man in the Middle East were indicted on charges that they illegally sent money to Iraq,
the U.S. attorney's office announced Wednesday.

The five men are charged in a 33-count indictment that alleges they stole government
and public money and falsely represented their fundraising goals to the public. Four are
associated with the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA, based in Columbia, Mo. The
fifth is associated with Islamic African Relief Agency, a Sudanese group suspected of
financing al-Qaida.

-snip-

A federal grand jury returned the indictment Tuesday charging the men with illegally
transferring $1.4 million to Iraq from March 1991 to May 2003, a period when Iraq was
under various sanctions by the United States and United Nations.

The indictment does not say how the money was spent, only that it was intended "to
promote unlawful activity."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030701294.html