New York, August 08: An ailing Yemeni cleric once sentenced to 75 years in prison in a high-profile U.S. terrorism prosecution quietly won his freedom Friday in a plea deal in federal court.
Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and his assistant pleaded guilty to conspiring to support violence by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. In exchange, they were sentenced to time served — more than six years — and will be sent back to Yemen within a few days.
An appeals court had thrown out earlier convictions of al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed, who was serving a 45-year term. Prosecutors told the judge that they concluded another trial was unnecessary as long as the men finally admitted they were trying to raise money for terrorism.
Al-Moayad, 60, responded, “Yes,” when asked by the judge if he knew Hamas engaged in “politically motivated acts of violence targeting civilian populations,” and that he “associated and worked with Hamas leaders in Yemen and Hamas-related organizations to provide financial support to Hamas.”
The defendant, wearing a white prayer cap and prison smocks, turned down an offer to address the court before U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry signed off on the deal in a nearly empty courtroom in Brooklyn. His lawyers asked that the cleric, who suffers from liver disease and a long list of other illnesses, be hospitalized until he leaves the country.
“This is an outrageous case,” defense attorney Elizabeth Fink said afterward. “It was a waste of American time. It was a waste of American dollars.”
Al-Moayad’s reversal of fortune began last year when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his and Zayed’s convictions. It found the defendants’ rights were violated by what it called “highly inflammatory and irrelevant” testimony and evidence, including descriptions of a deadly suicide bombing on a bus in Tel Aviv and images of Osama bin Laden.
The pair had been arrested in an elaborate sting by two FBI informants who lured them to Germany in 2003. In meetings in a bugged hotel room, al-Moayad was recorded as promising to funnel $2 million to Hamas and al-Qaida; he also boasted that bin Laden called him “my sheik.”
One of the informants, Mohamed Alanssi, set himself on fire in Washington before the trial in what he later described as an attempt to get more attention from the FBI. He recovered in time to take the witness stand in 2005 and describe al-Moayad as a dedicated funder of terrorism who boasted of giving bin Laden $20 million in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Defense attorneys argued that al-Moayad was duped into the terror-financing scheme by Alanssi. They claimed the witness exploited their client’s desire to fund a charitable bakery and other projects in Yemen, where he was a well-known cleric and high-ranking member of an Islamist opposition party.
A jury cleared al-Moayad of supporting al-Qaida but convicted him and Zayed of conspiring to help Hamas.
–Agencies