Al-Moayad update: a conviction of involvement in “a terror-funding network that stretched from Brooklyn to Yemen.” From AP, with thanks to Kemaste:
NEW YORK (AP) – A Yemeni sheik and his assistant were convicted Thursday of plotting to funnel money to al-Qaida and Hamas, handing a victory to prosecutors shaken last year when the man who was supposed to be their star witness set himself on fire outside the White House.
Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed were found guilty on all but two of the 10 charges in an indictment that accused them of vital roles in a terror-funding network that stretched from Brooklyn to Yemen.
In a meeting with FBI informants in a German hotel room, the men were secretly recorded promising to funnel more than $2 million to Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel.
Al-Moayad was also heard boasting that Osama bin Laden had once called him “my sheik.”
Al-Moayad, 56, could get 60 years in prison, and Zayed, 31, could receive 30 years behind bars.