From the New York Times, :
The New Jersey man, Numan Maflahi, 31, a Yemeni-born United States citizen, was convicted at a jury trial in February of making false statements to federal agents. When the agents questioned him in 2003, he denied helping a Yemeni cleric who prosecutors said made a fund-raising trip to Brooklyn mosques in 1999.
Prosecutors said Mr. Maflahi, a gas station owner who lives in Little Ferry, N.J., had been the driver and personal assistant for Sheik Abdullah Satar, a former member of parliament in Yemen. They have described Sheik Satar as a fund-raiser with ties to Al Qaeda.
But of course, for the defense this is all about racism:
Yesterday, Mr. Maflahi’s lawyer, Hassen Ibn Abdellah, told Judge Nina Gershon of Federal District Court in Brooklyn that her sentencing decision was a test of whether “this country could be fair to Arab-Americans.”