al-Haramain Foundation

According to the Associated Press, Al-Qaeda provided funds to a suspect in the November 2002 bombing of an Israeli hotel in Kenya, using sympathizers inside Al-Haramain and other Islamic charities.[4] A wholesale fish business financed with Al-Haramain funds used some of its profits to help the al Qaeda cell behind the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa.[4]

According to the UN Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, the foundation funded the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200, mostly foreign tourists.

Using a variety of means, Al-Haramain Foundation provided financial support to Al-Qaida operatives in Indonesia and to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). According to a senior Al-Qaida official apprehended in South-East Asia, Al-Haramain Foundation was one of the primary sources of funding for Al-Qaida network activities in the region. JI has committed a series of terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a nightclub in Bali on 12 October 2002 that killed 202 persons and wounded over 300 others.[15](QE.A.4.01).

The U.S. branch of AHF was established in 1997. As of 2004 it had headquarters in Ashland, Oregon and an office in Springfield, Missouri.[6] (In a 2000 US taxation form the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation reported its "prayer houses are located in Ashland, Oregon and Springfield, Mo."[16]

The U.S. government accused Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon of sending $150,000 through Saudi Arabia to fund terrorist activities and support Chechen mujahideen under the guise of humanitarian aid.[17] It also was accused of receiving money from Osama bin Laden in August 1998 and providing funding to an American imam who attended a training camp run by a terrorist organization in Pakistan.[17] On 19 February 2004, the assets of the U.S. branch were blocked by the US Treasury Department pending investigation, the results of which showed "direct links between the U.S. branch and Usama bin Laden". On 9 September 2004 Treasury announced "the designation" of the U.S. branch of Al Haramain along with one of its directors, Suliman Al-Buthe.[6] The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury had already banned various branches of this organization at various times.[6]

On 19 June 2008, U.S. Department of the Treasury "designated" the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHF) "for having provided financial and material support to al Qaida, as well as a wide range of designated terrorists and terrorist organizations." As a consequence, an "assets held by any office of the AHF organization under U.S. jurisdiction [were] frozen and U.S. persons [were] prohibited from engaging in any transactions with AHF."[18]

On 28 February 2006 the American branch of the foundation filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush, the NSA, FBI, and several other US officials.[19][20] The suit asserted that the Bush administration had circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by authorizing warrantless wiretaps. They asserted that the President lacked the authority to authorize wiretaps that circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Three individuals whose conversations were intercepted, Suliman al-Buthe, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, learned of the eavesdropping when U.S. officials accidentally delivered logs of phone calls to them.[20] Al-Buthe, who had traveled intermittently to the United States but who has always resided in Saudi Arabia, had been one of the directors of the Ashland chapter. Belew and Ghafoor were two of the Foundation's U.S. lawyers.

The foundation filed another suit in August 2007, challenging the Department of Treasury's 2004 designation of Al Haramain as a "specially designated global terrorist" and the seizure and freezing of all of its assets.[21] In September 2011, an appeals court ruled that United States officials correctly designated the charity as supporting terrorism, but found the Treasury department's Office of Foreign Assets Control improperly seized the charity's assets using a "blocking order" to freeze them without a warrant supported by probable cause, violating the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures, and that they also violated the charity's procedural due process rights by failing to give a post-seizure explanation of the basis for the seizure.[22]

In 2010 one of the charity's founders (Pete Seda) was convicted of tax-fraud but the conviction was overturned in 2013.[17] In August 2013, the group filed a petition with a committee of the United Nations Security Council to remove the nonprofit from its list of entities associated with al-Qaida.[17]

In 2013, Al-Buthe (who was one of the directors of the Ashland chapter and who had been wiretapped by the US government) was taken off a United Nations list of people subject to sanctions for ties to Al-Qaeda but remained on a similar US list.[23] His attorney Tom Nelson said the UN action is some vindication for his client, but that Al-Buthe is a victim of the post-9/11 anti-terrorism paranoia.[23]

Thomas H. Nelson of Welches, Oregon, another Foundation lawyer, filed the lawsuit. Court records show he filed a motion to place the relevant material under seal.

On 31 March 2010, US District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the Bush administration should have gotten warrants for its wiretaps of Al Haramain.[24]

Al-Haramain funded and supported a Bosnian mujahideen battalion in Zenica Bosnia. In Macedonia, the CIA alleged that the foundation raised funds through "narcotics trafficking and prostitution". In Albania, a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar, joined al-Haramain's Tirana office in 1993. He was apprehended in Albania and extradited to Egypt in June 1998 for an attempted bombing of the Khan el-Khalili Souq (market) in Cairo in 1997.[25] In September 2014, Kosovo Police arrested a local Muslim imam Shefqet Krasniqi and media reported that Krasniqi was being arrested for money laundering with "hundreds of thousands of euro" received from Al-Haramain. On 18 September Court confirmed initial detention for a month pending final charges to be raised by Kosovo prosecution.[26]

Although not necessarily alleging attacks against civilians, the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service) accused Al-Haramain (among other charities) of operating for years in Chechnya (see Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya) and Dagestan, financing Wahhabi based training for emigrant would-be Jihadists.[27] The FSB accused Al-Haramain of wiring $1 million to Chechen rebels in 1999 and of arranging to buy 500 heavy weapons for them from Taliban units.[28]