Al-Moayad update. Evidently this is yet another Muslim cleric who has misunderstood Islam. I expect Ibrahim Hooper will be on the phone to him forthwith to explain to him the error of his ways. “Yemeni Cleric Receives 75-Year Sentence,” from AP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge on Thursday sentenced a Yemeni cleric who bragged about his ties to Osama bin Laden to 75 years in prison, the maximum penalty in a case that was shaken when the star witness set himself on fire outside the White House.
“Your honor, what have I done?” Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad said as he was led away to begin serving his sentence.
Hmmm. Maintaining the facade until the end, I see.
He was convicted on charges of conspiring to support al-Qaeda and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaeda.
Al-Moayad, 57, was secretly recorded promising to funnel more than $2 million to Hamas in a meeting with two FBI informants in a German hotel room. He was arrested by German police in January 2003 and extradited to the United States….
One of the informants, Mohamed Alanssi, set himself on fire outside the White House in November 2004 in what he later described as an attempt to get more money from the FBI, which paid him at least $100,000 for his work.
Alanssi nonetheless testified at al-Moayad’s trial that the sheik had boasted of giving bin Laden $20 million in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks.