Republican Lawmaker Indicted in Inquiry of Islamic Charity

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON — A former Republican congressman from Michigan was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice. The allegations involve his work as a lobbyist for an Islamic charity accused of illegally funneling about $130,000 to an Afghan warlord considered a terrorist by the United States government.

The former congressman, Mark D. Siljander, who was defeated for re-election in 1986 after three terms in the House, was accused by a federal grand jury in Kansas City of accepting $50,000 in stolen government aid money as his lobbying fee from the now-defunct charity group, the Islamic American Relief Agency.

The charity — which was based in Columbia, Mo., and closed in 2004 — and several of its former leaders were already under indictment on charges of illegally transferring money to Iraq and stealing government money.

The broader indictment issued Wednesday also accused the charity and its former officers of transferring about $130,000 to Pakistan for the benefit of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister of Afghanistan. Mr. Hekmatyar is a warlord who has been formally designated a terrorist by the United States because of his links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Siljander, a conservative who runs a Washington consulting firm, was not accused of involvement in money transfers to Mr. Gulbuddin.

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More to this story at link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/17cnd-indict.html?hp