Two Somali refugees who ran the local branch of a money transfer group linked to al-Qaida were sentenced to jail time on Wednesday for illegally structuring bank deposits.
But the men will remain free on bond during appeal, and the government acknowledged that Abdirahman Sheikh-Ali Isse and his nephew, Abdillah Abdi, had no knowledge that their parent organisation, al-Barakat, was allegedly funneling money to terrorists.
Isse, who ran the branch, was sentenced to 18 months. Abdi, who worked for Isse, was sentenced to 10 months, including five months of home detention. Both men lived in Alexandria, where their business was located. It was one of several al-Barakat branches raided nationwide in November in an effort to choke off al-Qaida’s financial network.
Defence attorneys had argued that their clients should have been eligible for probation because the violations were technical in nature and because they had no knowledge of the supposed link between al-Barakat and al-Qaida.
Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg had argued that the men should receive sentences of three to five years because their criminal conduct supported al-Qaida, albeit unwittingly. Al-Barakat, an organisation based in the United Arab Emirates that caters to Somalis, was the largest business in Somalia before the US government froze its assets last year.
Somalis rely on al-Barakat to transfer money because the country has no central banking system after years of civil war. Isse and Abdi would accept money from Somalis in the United States who wanted to send money back home to family or friends, taking a four percent commission. They would keep one percent, and the other three percent went to al-Barakat.
The Bush administration froze Al-Barakat’s assets on November 7, saying the organisation funneled $15-million a year to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
The men pleaded guilty earlier this year to illegally structuring millions of dollars in bank deposits. Specifically, they admitted making bank deposits in increments smaller than $10 000 to avoid federal reporting requirements. – Sapa-AP