Feds: Brooklyn Man Gave $45K to Al Qaeda

Source: NBC

A Brooklyn-born man accused of suporting Al Qaeda with more than $45,000 in cash and technical training was held without bail after a hearing Wednesday.

Wesam El-Hanafi, 33, an Egyptian-American computer engineer raised in Bath Beach, had traveled to Yemen to meet with Al Qaeda leaders, giving them the money and teaching them how to send encrypted communications, federal prosecutors said.

Ambitious for a leadership role in Al Qaeda, El-Hanafi apparently brought his radical beliefs back to Brooklyn where he tried to form a "mini-Al Qaeda cell," recruiting co-defendant Sabirhan Hasanoff, prosecutors charged.

(snip)

Hasanoff, an accountant with dual American and Australian citizenship, pleaded not guilty at his appearance in Mahattan Federal Court last week. He's also a Baruch College graduate and had worked in a Dubai holding company for the last 10 months.

Read more: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Feds--Brooklyn-Man-Gave-45K-to-Al-Qaeda-94967819.html

This asshole has to be tied to Murdoch somehow.

but didn't the SCOTUS say that money = speech?
By arresting this guy for giving money to Al Qaeda aren't they violating his 1st amendment rights?

Just lookin' for a little consistency here.

--MAB

With oil prices surging, Saudi Arabia is growing in prosperity and embracing some modern trappings. Bibles and crucifixes are still banned, but internet access is spreading and there are plans for “Mile High Tower”, the world’s tallest skyscraper, in Jeddah. As a key ally of the West, the king had every reason to expect a warm welcome.

Yet wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” said Stuart Levey, the US Treasury official in charge of tracking terror financing.

Extremist clerics provide a stream of recruits to some of the world’s nastiest trouble spots.

An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant.

Times Online

Yet, Bush lets them crash planes into the WTC and reacts by holding hands and playing "kissy-face" with them.

But I don't recall any of them getting arrested. Did I miss something?

It's called "House of Bush, House of Saud", and it details the financial ties between the two families and how
they have perverted the course of justice.

I thought it would probably be heavy going, because I don't have a good financial brain, but it wasn't at all.
It was most interesting and very easy to read and understand.

I'm putting that title on my summer reading list...:hi: