“The feds suspect a Yemeni diplomat drummed up cash for terror groups during a visit to Brooklyn mosques in 1999, an FBI agent testified yesterday.” This from the New York Post.
The allegations against Sheik Abdullah Satar came to light at the trial of Numan Maflahi, who the feds say acted as the diplomat’s personal assistant in New York. Maflahi is accused of lying to the FBI.
Authorities watched Satar round-the-clock from the time he landed at JFK Airport Dec. 28, 1999, monitoring his whirlwind tour of mosques.
Satar later flew to Italy, where he gave a speech calling for jihad and met with an al Qaeda operative who has since been convicted of aiding terrorists, FBI agent Brian Murphy testified.
The diplomat was back on the feds’ radar last year during an investigation into another Yemeni cleric, Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, who is awaiting trial on charges he supplied al Qaeda and Hamas with $20 million collected in Brooklyn.
An FBI informant learned that a sympathizer who was afraid to send money to Al-Moayad after Sept. 11, 2001, was secretly taped saying it would be safer to channel contributions through Satar, whose diplomatic passport reduced the risk of his bags being searched, Murphy testified.
Grilled by the feds on March 4, 2003, Maflahi, 30, denied helping Satar with his fund-raising activities.