Head of Islamic Charity Is Indicted

The head of an Illinois-based Islamic charity was indicted Wednesday on charges of fraudulently raising potentially millions of dollars for the Al Qaeda terrorist network, and he was accused by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft of being a close associate of Osama bin Laden who bought large quantities of weapons for jihad warriors.

Enaam Arnaout, 40, executive director of the Benevolence International Foundation, was charged with conspiracy to engage in a racketeering enterprise, providing material support to Al Qaeda and other terrorists, money laundering mail fraud and wire fraud. He faces a maximum of 90 years in prison without parole if convicted on all counts.

A grand jury in Chicago accused Arnaout of defrauding contributors to the high-profile international charity by falsely claiming that it used donations solely for humanitarian relief, including helping children in war-torn Islamic countries. An undisclosed--but significant--amount of money actually was sent to Al Qaeda and “other groups engaged in armed violence overseas” over a period of more than 10 years, it said.

In one case in November 2001, the seven-count indictment alleges, Arnaout told a Benevolence employee in Bosnia-Herzegovina to camouflage donations that went to injured jihad fighters by creating “a new list of orphans as a means of justifying the expenditures.”

“There is no moral distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance terrorist attacks,” Ashcroft said at a news conference in Chicago. “We ... will find the sources of terrorist blood money, we will shut down these sources, and we will ensure that both terrorists and their financiers meet the same swift, certain justice of the United States of America.”

Ashcroft accused Arnaout of preying on the goodwill of Muslims in the United States, who he said are obliged by the principles of their religion to donate to legitimate charities. Some donors knew the money was going to Al Qaeda, Ashcroft said, but most did not.

Benevolence International is one of the largest and most prominent Muslim charities in the United States, with offices in Bosnia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Yemen, Turkey, Georgia and China. It frequently raises more than $1 million a year in charitable donations.

Arnaout, a Syrian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, has been in custody since April and could not be reached for comment. But a lawyer for the Palos Hills, Ill.-based group said the charges against Arnaout were unfair and based on “guilt by association” stemming from his support of Afghan fighters opposing the Soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s. The government alleges that Arnaout and Bin Laden met during that time and continued their relationship for more than a decade.

“It is no secret that almost everybody in the Arab and Muslim world was supportive of the efforts to resist the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, as was our own government,” lawyer Matthew Piers said.

Arnaout, a married father of four, was arrested April 30 on charges of lying under oath in documents his group had filed in federal court in an effort to have its funds released by the U.S. government. Those funds were frozen last year because of Benevolence International’s alleged ties to Al Qaeda. In those documents, Arnaout insisted that he had no connection to terrorist activity and that he had never met Bin Laden or other top Al Qaeda leaders.

But Wednesday’s indictment alleged a wealth of connections between Arnaout, Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda officials, as well as other alleged terrorists, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord who has targeted U.S. troops.

It also disclosed that when authorities raided a Benevolence International office in Bosnia in March, they found a treasure trove of incriminating Al Qaeda documents, including details of how the group officially was formed on Sept. 10, 1988; top Saudi Arabian financiers of the terror network; the text of the original oath of allegiance pledged by Al Qaeda members; and personnel files of individual moujahedeen, or Islamic warriors, trained in Afghanistan under Bin Laden’s direction.

“The documents ... show the American people and the world for the first time tangible proof of the founding of the world’s most dangerous terrorist network and the oath of allegiance its members pledge,” Ashcroft said. “It is chilling that the origins of Al Qaeda were discovered in a charity claiming to do good.”

The seized documents also showed that in the mid- to late 1980s, Arnaout served as the director of communications at a moujahedeen camp in Afghanistan under the direction of Bin Laden. While there, the indictment alleged, Arnaout was involved in acquiring and distributing hundreds of rockets, mortars and bombs on behalf of jihad causes.

Piers said the documents provided to Arnaout’s defense team don’t indicate any kind of liaison between him and the charity and terrorists, including Bin Laden. “They are interesting historical documents, if true, but they are not indicative of any wrongdoing by Mr. Arnaout,” Piers said. He added that Arnaout never told the Bosnian employee to lie about the destination of donations.

“Enaam is not surprised” by the indictment, Piers added. “But he is saddened by the prospect that with the government putting all of this effort and focus on him, that he may be spending the rest of his life in jail. He has no illusions about the difficulty in getting a fair trial, especially with the attorney general traveling here personally to inflame the press and the public.”

Arnaout, he said, “feels betrayed by a country for which he believes he has been a patriotic and productive citizen.”

In recent months, U.S. authorities have alleged that Arnaout has been a personal friend of Bin Laden for more than a dozen years, and that Al Qaeda has long used Benevolence International for logistical support and financing. One Chicago-based FBI agent said in an affidavit that terrorists who have tried to obtain chemical and nuclear weapons on behalf of Al Qaeda have had contacts with Benevolence International offices and personnel.

The group also has made efforts to provide Chechen rebels and a related military group with money, an X-ray machine and anti-mine boots, the FBI agent said.