Sheik Gets 75 Years in Terrorism Financing Scheme

A Yemeni cleric who bragged about his ties to Osama bin Laden was sentenced Thursday to 75 years in prison -- the maximum -- in a terrorism financing case that was nearly derailed when the government’s star witness set himself on fire outside the White House.

A federal judge prefaced Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan Mouyad’s sentence with a recitation of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, beginning with a hijacked jet crashing into the World Trade Center.

“We all remember September the 11th,” U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. said. “While the defendant is not being sentenced as a result of the events of 9/11, he came to the attention of the authorities because of 9/11.”

A jury in March found Mouyad, 57, guilty of conspiring to support and attempting to support Al Qaeda and Palestinian extremist group Hamas. He also was convicted of actually supporting Hamas, but acquitted of supporting Al Qaeda.

Mouyad was lured to Germany by two FBI informants in 2003 and was secretly recorded promising to funnel money to Hamas and Al Qaeda. He also boasted that Bin Laden called him “my sheik.” He was arrested by German police and sent to the United States.

One of the informants, Mohamed Alanssi, set himself on fire in Washington in November in what he later described as an attempt to get more money from the FBI, which had paid him at least $100,000.

At trial, Alanssi described Mouyad as a dedicated terrorism donor who boasted of giving Bin Laden $20 million in the years before Sept. 11.

Defense lawyers argued that Mouyad was duped into the terrorism financing scheme. They said Alanssi played on the sheik’s desire to finance a charitable bakery and other projects in Yemen.

Among the most damaging evidence at trial was a recording of Mouyad praying for the deaths of Jews and Americans: “Dear God, strike them with earthquakes, put them in their coffins, abandon them and defeat them.”

The judge called the taped conversations “chilling.”

Asking the judge for leniency, Mouyad described a life of giving food, clothing and other aid to poverty-stricken Yemenis.

Prosecutors praised the sentence as a victory in the war on terrorism.

“Those who finance terrorist attacks, and rejoice in the murder of innocent victims, are no different from those who plant the bombs or carry the backpacks,” U.S. Atty. Roslynn Mauskopf said.

Mouyad appeared distressed at what his lawyer said amounted to a life sentence.

“Your honor, what have I done?” he said in Arabic as he was led away.