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Charity official’s arrest shocks Arab, Muslim leaders |
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By JEFF KAROUB, The Associated Press
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DETROIT — Some members and leaders of the area’s large Arab-American and Muslim community hold Muthanna Al-Hanooti in high regard for his charity and advocacy work in the United States and abroad - particularly in his native Iraq.
But federal authorities accuse the 48-year-old suburban Detroit resident of conspiring with the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
Al-Hanooti was arrested March 25 at the airport while returning from the Middle East and charged the next day with setting up a 2002 junket to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers that was secretly financed by Saddam’s government.
Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities.
Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, which he’s accused of selling to a company that would transport it to a refinery. The indictment did not indicate how much he would have netted from the deal.
Between 1999 and 2006, Al-Hanooti worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a Detroit-area charity formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity’s Southfield headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.
James Thomas, Al-Hanooti’s attorney, said his client would “vigorously defend” himself against the charges.
Shareef Akeel, an attorney representing the charity, said, “We’re relying on the justice system to vet out the truth,” he said. “These allegations just appear to be inconsistent.”
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