Terror proof strong against US imam: prosecutor

‘Evidence from recorded conversations, financial records overwhelming’ Judge dismisses plaintiff’s bid

MIAMI, Feb 26, (AP): Evidence is overwhelming from hundreds of recorded conversations and financial records that an elderly Muslim cleric enthusiastically supported the violent Pakistani Taleban terror organization, a prosecutor said in a closing argument Monday.

Quoting several passages from FBI intercepts of Hafiz Khan’s conversations, Assistant US Attorney Sivashree Sundaram said Khan repeatedly praised Taleban suicide bombers and grenade attacks that killed both Americans and Pakistanis. She pointed to other recordings in which Khan said he wished a 2010 attempt by a Taleban-linked operative to detonate a bomb in New York’s Times Square had succeeded.

“This is a straightforward case,” Sundaram told jurors as the two-month trial drew to a close. “This defendant convicted himself with his own words and actions. These are not the words of a peace-loving man.”

Khan, the 77-year-old imam at a Miami mosque, is charged with conspiracy and terrorism material support for allegedly sending about $50,000 between 2008 and 2010 to the help the Taleban cause in his native Pakistan. If convicted, Khan faces up to 15 years in prison on each of the four charges. He has been jailed since his May 2011 arrest.

Khan, a naturalized US citizen who came from Pakistan in 1994, testified over four days in his own defense, insisting that he opposed Islamic extremists and lied about supporting them in hopes of getting $1 million from a man he believed was another Taleban backer. In fact, that man was an FBI informant who wore a wire to record many of their discussions.

Khan also claimed the money he sent overseas was for family or business purposes, or for a religious school called a madrassa he owns in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

Khan’s attorney, Khurrum Wahid, said in his closing argument that the imam was simply speaking out strongly about Pakistan’s political situation and that prosecutors had failed to show that the Taleban received the money he sent. Wahid said the prosecution’s case was “cobbled together” with phone calls over a two-year period involving an “elderly man who clearly has problems with impulse control.”

“This is America. You’re able to say. You’re able to think. You can’t take that extra step and do something illegal,” Wahid said.

Authorities have acknowledged that not every dime from Khan went to extremists. But Sundaram said Khan contradicted his own words on FBI recording in which he talked about helping wounded mujahedeen fighters and buying weapons.