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 Siljander pleads guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency lobbying case
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Siljander pleads guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency lobbying case
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 8, 2010; A04
A former congressman pleaded guilty Wednesday to serving as an unregistered agent in Washington for a Missouri-based Islamic charity that the federal government said had ties to international terrorism.
It was an odd outcome for Mark D. Siljander, who said he wanted to help bridge the gulf between Muslims and Christians. A Republican who attained one of Michigan's congressional seats from 1981 to 1987 with assistance from the Moral Majority, Siljander was outspoken about conservative social issues.
Siljander confirmed in a Kansas City, Mo., court that he contacted members of Congress in an effort to lift restrictions on the charity and then lied about his work in statements to investigators. He could face a 15-year prison term and a $500,000 fine, according to a Justice Department statement.
Siljander attorney Lance Sandage said in a statement that his client "has accepted responsibility for his conduct in his pleas to an obstruction of justice charge and a violation of a regulatory statute."
"We would point out that all other charges of conspiracy and money laundering against him will be dismissed and of course no terrorism charges were alleged," Sandage said.
The charity in question, the Islamic American Relief Agency, was raided and shuttered by the government in 2004 after extensive wiretaps of its officers. In a 2008 indictment, the charity was charged with improperly sending funds to Pakistan on behalf of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had received millions from the CIA and was briefly Afghanistan's foreign minister. He later formed an alliance with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that led the United States to try to kill him with a drone missile.
On June 25, charity director Mubarak Hamed pleaded guilty instead to sending more than $1 million to Iraq while that country was under U.S. sanctions, before the 2003 U.S. occupation. Hamed also confirmed for the first time that the charity was allied with a group in Sudan that the government said had provided funds to al-Qaeda, bin Laden and the Taliban.
Siljander's legal fate may have been sealed when Hamed, in his court plea, contested the former lawmaker's claim that the charity had paid him $75,000 not as a lobbying fee but to help underwrite a 2008 book, "A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide."
The Justice Department has said the funds paid to Siljander were stolen by the charity from a U.S. Agency for International Development grant intended to finance work in Mali. The department said that a fundraiser for the group, Abdel Azim El-Siddiq of Chicago, admitted to having joined with Hamed to hire Siljander as a lobbyist while deliberately concealing the payments. The money was funneled through nonprofit entities controlled by Siljander, it said.
In response, Siljander "acted as an agent" of the charity in contacts during 2004 with the Senate Finance Committee, USAID, the Justice Department and the Army. He sought unsuccessfully to have the charity removed from a list of organizations suspected of financing terrorism, the Justice Department said.
Siljander, a resident of Great Falls, was known among social conservatives as the author of a law barring USAID from spending any money to lobby for abortion.
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Re: Siljander pleads guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency lobbying case (Re: الشفيع وراق عبد الرحمن)
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الأخ دينق
سلامات
ودى مقالة تانية بخصوص الموضوع لطشناها من مداخلة للأخ عادل صالح فى بوست فيلى... الأحمر من عندى وبهديه للجربندية واللى ما عايزين يعترفوا بضرورة تسجيل أحزابهم ولا أنفسهم كوكلاء وما زالوا يخدمون مصالح المنظمات ووقوع المحظور مسألة وقت... فليتهم يتعظون ...
Quote: Ex-congressman, Illinois man plead guilty in Islamic charity case
Sudaneseonline.com
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Thursday, Jul 8, 2010
Posted on Wed, Jul. 07, 2010
Ex-congressman, Illinois man plead guilty in Islamic charity case
By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star
A former Republican congressman and an Illinois man pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Kansas City to acting as unregistered foreign agents while representing a foreign charity before the U.S. government.
Mark Deli Siljander, who once represented Michigan in the U.S. House, and Abdel Azim Elsiddig, a part-time fundraiser for the former Islamic American Relief Agency in Columbia, Mo., each acknowledged they conspired to lobby for the Sudan-based Islamic African Relief Agency.
In separate plea hearings, each man admitted that he was required to register with the Justice Department before representing the Sudanese charity.
Siljander, 59, also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for lying to FBI agents and prosecutors about the purpose of the lobbying funds. At the time, he described the $75,000 payments as charitable contributions for a book he was writing.
In October 2004, the Treasury Department declared the Sudanese charity and its Columbia office as supporters of international terrorism and froze their assets in the U.S.
“A former congressman engaged in illegal lobbying for a charity suspected of funding international terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips said in a written statement. “Siljander repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors investigating serious crimes related to national security.”
Elsiddig, 53, acknowledged 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.
Lance Sandage, a lawyer for Siljander, noted afterward that the government dropped conspiracy and money-laundering charges in return for his client’s pleas.
Jean Paul Bradshaw, representing Elsiddig, said, “The plea today was related to a technical violation of a regulatory act and we’ve accepted our responsibility for that.”
In June, Mubarak Hamed, who directed the charity’s Columbia office, pleaded guilty to sending more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions. Hamed also acknowledged, after years of denials, that the Columbia charity was part of the Sudanese charity.
Siljander and Elsiddig were the last of the defendants in the case to plead guilty.
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Re: Siljander pleads guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency lobbying case (Re: SAIF MUstafa)
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| Quote: ما اللوبيهات الصهيونية قاعدة تبيع وتشتري وعلى عينك يا تاجر ام ان هذه لا تحظرها القوانين الامريكية؟ |
الأخ الشفيع
سلامات
بالمناسبة على عينك يا تاجر دا هو المطلوب.. والمحظور هو أنك تعمل لوبى بالدس...
الجهات السودانية ممكن تسجل زى اللوبيهات التانية.. بس المشكلة أنهم بالواضح ما فى زول بيخدمهم عشان سمعة النظام.. ولو حصل الزول دا حيفقد كرسيه لو سياسى أو تعاقداته لو عندو شركة لوبى... يعنى المشكلة ما فى القانون المشكلة فى اسم السودان وحكومته.. عشان كدة السفارة والجهات السودانية زى المنظمة دى شغالين شراء زمم بالسوق الأسود..
تحياتى
سيف مصطفى
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Re: Siljander pleads guilty in Islamic American Relief Agency lobbying case (Re: ابراهيم عدلان)
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NEWS RELEASE
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
BETH PHILLIPS
Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106
www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html
JULY 7, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FORMER CONGRESSMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE, ACTING AS UNREGISTERED FOREIGN AGENT
IARA FUNDRAISER ALSO PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRING
WITH FORMER CONGRESSMAN, OTHERS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pleaded guilty in federal court today to obstruction of justice and to acting as an unregistered foreign agent, related to his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism.
Mark Deli Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey to one charge contained in an Oct. 21, 2008, federal indictment, and an additional charge filed today, involving his work for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) of Columbia, Mo. Siljander was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan and was a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly.
Co-defendant Abdel Azim El-Siddig, of Chicago, Ill., a former IARA fundraiser, also pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Siljander and others to hire Siljander to lobby for IARA’s removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of having terrorist ties, while concealing this advocacy and not registering with the proper authorities.
“A former congressman engaged in illegal lobbying for a charity suspected of funding international terrorism. He then used his own charities to hide the payments for his criminal activities,” Phillips said. “Siljander repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors investigating serious crimes related to national security. With today’s guilty pleas, all of the defendants in this case have admitted their guilt and will be held accountable for their actions.”
Siljander operated a Washington, D.C. consulting business called Global Strategies, Inc. IARA was an Islamic charity in Columbia, Mo., that served as the U.S. office of an international organization headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan. IARA was closed in October 2004, after being identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist organization, for the support its international offices provided to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and the Taliban. The executive director of IARA, co-defendant Mubarak Hamed, 53, of Columbia, a naturalized United States citizen originally from Sudan, has pleaded guilty in connection with this case.
According to today’s plea agreements, between March and May 2004, Hamed and El-Siddig hired Siljander to lobby for IARA’s removal from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of funding international terrorism, and its reinstatement as an approved government contractor. IARA lost its status as an approved government contractor in 1999, when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) terminated grants for two relief projects in Mali, Africa. USAID informed the organization that the grants were not in the national security interest of the United States.
Siljander, El-Siddig and Hamed each knew that IARA was part of a large international organization controlled by its headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, and agreed with each other to conceal Siljander’s efforts on IARA’s behalf. In order to do so, Siljander instructed El-Siddig and Hamed to transfer $75,000 of IARA’s funds to him by funneling them through nonprofit entities. El-Siddig carried at least three checks issued to Siljander’s charities from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and gave them to Siljander.
In exchange for the payments, during the Summer of 2004, Siljander acted as an agent for IARA by contacting persons at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, USAID, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Army, in an effort to have IARA removed from the USAID list of debarred entities, and to remove IARA from the Senate Finance Committee’s list of charities suspected of funding terrorism. Federal law requires anyone who serves as an agent of a foreign entity, including an organization, to register with the U.S. Attorney General.
In pleading guilty, Siljander admitted that in two separate interviews he repeatedly lied to FBI agents and prosecutors acting on behalf of a federal grand jury. Siljander obstructed justice by falsely denying that he was hired to advocate for IARA, and by falsely claiming that the payments from IARA were charitable donations intended to assist him in writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity.
Under federal statutes, Siljander is subject to a sentence of up to 15 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $500,000. El-Siddig is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine of up to $250,000. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the U.S. Probation Office.
Siljander and El-Siddig were the final defendants facing trial next week in Kansas City, Mo.
Co-defendant Hamed pleaded guilty on June 25, 2010, to conspiring to illegally transfer more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions, and to obstructing the administration of the laws governing tax-exempt charities. Hamed used IARA to solicit charitable contributions throughout the United States, taking in between $1 million and $3 million in contributions annually from 1991 to 2003, and then illegally transferred funds to Iraq, with the assistance of a Jordanian identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist. Hamed also impaired and impeded the administration of the Internal Revenue laws by misusing IARA’s tax-exempt status, providing false information to the IRS, and lying to federal agents.
Co-defendant Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 56, a native of Libya who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and former resident of Columbia, pleaded guilty on April 6, 2010, to his role in the conspiracy. Bagegni was a member of the board of directors of IARA.
Co-defendant Ahmad Mustafa, 57, of Columbia, a citizen of Iraq and a lawful permanent resident alien, pleaded guilty on Dec. 17, 2009, to illegally transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions. Mustafa worked as a fund-raiser for IARA and traveled throughout the United States soliciting charitable contributions. Further, in 1999, 2000 and 2001, at Hamed’s behest, Mustafa traveled to Iraq on IARA business. In 2001, he visited Iraq for several weeks and met with numerous officials to discuss the process of opening an IARA office in Iraq. Among the officials with whom Mustafa met was Hushyar Zibari, who was at the time a leader in the Patriotic Democratic Party of Kurdistan and is currently the foreign minister of Iraq. Mustafa also looked to find a building suitable for an IARA office in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony P. Gonzalez, Steven M. Mohlhenrich, Dan Stewart and Brian Casey from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri, and Trial Attorney Paul G. Casey from the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, IRS-Criminal Investigation and U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of the Inspector General.
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This news release, as well as additional information about the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is available on-line at
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html
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Deng
الشفيع وراق عبد الرحمن
SAIF MUstafa
Mohamed Yassin Khalifa
ابراهيم عدلان
عمر ادريس محمد
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست