Al Haramain (GS)

8/8/2019 Al Haramain (GS)

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Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was a charity foundation, based inSaudi Arabia, alleged by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in a

September 2004 press release to have "direct links" with Osama binLaden. Although all charges were dropped by a federal judge, itis now banned worldwide by United Nations SecurityCouncil Committee 1267 (Al-Qaeda and TalibanSanctions Committee )

Al-Haramain Islamic

Foundation -- based inRiyadh, Saudi Arabia, andwith branches around theworld -- purports to be aninnocuous charity whichcollects funds to helpMuslims in poor countries.But this faade is a cover forits real purpose: to spreadextremist Wahhabi doctrineinternationally, to providefunding for Al Qaeda, andto finance specific terrorplots.


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AlHaramain

Afganistan

Albania

Bangladesh

Bosnia

Comoros

Ethiopia

Indonesia

Kenya

Netherlands

Nigeria

Pakistan

Somalia

Tanzania

USA


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The United Nations, The United States, GreatBritain as well as several other countries haveall designated Al-Haramain as a terrorist entity;

frozen and seized its funds where possible; andbanned it from conducting business. Even so,Al-Haramain continues to operate in third-world countries and almost certainly continues

to fund and promote radical Islamic


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1998s embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (which killed 223 people andinjured over 4,000) were financed with Al-Haramain funds; and that it was well-known to Western governments that funds donated to Al-Haramain sometimesfound their way to Al Qaeda, and had been used to finance several terror plots.

Al-Haramain funded the Bali bombers in 2002 -- one of the most devastatingpost-9/11 terror attacks, in which 202 people were killed.

The Albanian branch of Al-Haramain funded jihad and had a connection toOsama bin Laden himself.


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The United Nations itselfmaintains a list oforganizations that providesupport for Al Qaeda,and the various internationalbranches of Al-Haramain are

featured prominently on thelist. Al-Haramain isnow banned globally by theU.N.

On May 6, 2004, The U.S. TreasuryDepartment desginated the Bosnianbranch of Al-Haramain as a terroristentity.


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ASHLAND , OREGONThere was one branch of the foundation in the United States, located at Ashland,Oregon. The Ashland chapter assisted the Islamic Society of Springfield, Missouri, in thepurchase of a prayer house, but the Springfield organization shares no common

directors and is not and never was under the control of the Al-Haramain organization.

Shaker Aamer

Fahd Muhammed Abdullah Al Fouzan

Zaid Muhamamd Sa'id Al Husayn

Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj

Abdul Al Salam Al Hilal

Abdul Rahman Owaid Mohammad Al

Juaid

Abdel Hadi Mohammed Badan Al Sebaii

Sebaii

Mohammed Asad

Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mar'i

Laid Saidi

Wazim

Khalid Mahomoud Abdul Wahab Al Asmr

The United States has held several suspects inthe War on Terrorism who are alleged to haveworked for or volunteered for the Al-Haramain

Foundation .


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Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. was the Ashland, Oregon-based American branchof Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a huge international Islamic charity founded andheadquartered in Saudi Arabia, with subsidiaries in countries around the world. After9/11, several governments (including the U.S., the U.K., and even the United Nations)began investigating the terror funding network, and found evidence that money fromAl-Haramain was used not just for charity projects but also to finance Al Qaeda and

specific terrorist plots. Various foreign branches of Al-Haramain were broken up or shutdown, but it was not apparently until 2004 that the U.S. branch of Al-Haramain cameunder intense investigation.


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In early 2004, government intelligence servicessupposedly (or has been alleged) began electronicsurveillance of phone calls connected to theAshland Al-Haramain office. It is not known ifwarrants were obtained, or if the calls weredomestic or international. Partly based onintelligence gathered during this surveillance,The U.S. government declared the Oregon branchof Al-Haramain a "specially designated globalterrorist." In particular, the government learned

that the directors of Al-Haramain had withdrawn$150,000 from their U.S. bank account, convertedit into traveler's checks, and then smuggled it outof the country to terror groups in Chechnya --without filling out the proper tax forms regardingfinancial transactions, which is a criminal

offense.

Unexpectedly, Al-Haramainfought back. They contactedlawyers and sued to have the"terrorist" designation revoked.During what is called "discovery"(a legal term in which each sidein a civil case must reveal itsevidence to the other side), anemployee of the U.S. governmentaccidentally included in a stack

of documents given to Al-Haramain a Top Secret record ofthe surveillance logs.


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Both sides were put intocompletely impossible positions:The government had to suppress adocument which revealed Top

Secret surveillance without actuallyadmitting that it had conductedany surveillance; whereas Al-Haramain sought to revoke itsdesignation as a terroristorganization by citing the very

evidence (the information gatheredduring the surveillance) thatsuggested it was a terroristorganization.


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In US vs Al-Haramain

After 9 circuits of Court of appeals , theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled thatthe lawsuit by Al-Haramain would be

allowed to continue (which their lawyersoptimistically construed as a victory), butthat they would not be allowed to refer tothe leaked surveillance records in thelawsuit, nor could they describe themfrom memory -- which is exactly what theBush administration lawyers hadrequested. So Al-Haramain was allowedto proceed with their suit, but weredenied use of their only significant pieceof evidence, thereby dooming the case toalmost certain defeat.


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The leaked surveillance documentwas not allowed as evidence in thelawsuit; The Al-Haramain case in particularwas then dismissed and is no longer

pending; A judge ruled that the governmenthad indeed violated the law if it didconduct wiretaps without a warrant; All of these facts may have beenoverwhelmed and rendered moot by

the subsequent passage of the 2008Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceAct, which seems to retroactivelyprotect the government fromlawsuits regarding purportedlyillegal surveillance.


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Al Haramain (GS)