Mazen Mokhtar Busted For Tax Fraud

Well, it’s just a tax fraud case, but that’s how the FBI reined in Al Capone…

Mazen Mokhtar – Suspected Al-Qaeda Webmaster – Busted For Tax Fraud

May 14, 2007 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Mazen Mokhtar a New Jersey Muslim born in Egypt was arrested on April 24 for tax fraud. Despite long being suspected of aiding al-Qaeda fundraising activities, he was released after questioning by U.S. Magistrate Judge Esther Salas in Newark after posting a $100,000 bond.

Ms. Salas spent 9 years as a federal public defender and was appointed to the position of magistrate in November of 2006.

Mokhtar has also served as the imam of Al Huda Islamic Center and is a frequent speaker at a Young Muslim camps run by the Islamic Circle of North America [ICNA] and the Muslim American Society [MAS], the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Prior to 9/11 the youth camps were called “Jihad”and “Afterlife” camps. In August 2001 speakers included Imam Siraj Wahaj, identified by federal prosecutors in 1995 as a “possible unindicted co-conspirator” in the terrorism case against blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and Saffet Catovic, a Bosnian associated with the Benevolence International Foundation, a now-defunct Muslim charity accused by the U.S. government of financing terrorism…”

In 2006 Mokhtar spoke in PA at a camp together with Shamsi Ali the Imam of the 96th Street Mosque in New York who is currently on the advisory board of the planned Khalil Gibran school slated to open in September.

Mokhtar is charged with failing to file business tax forms for his computer company “Mindcraft” and making false statements on his personal income taxes.

He has been under surveillance as a possible terrorist, working with others to raise funds for al-Qaeda. In September of 2004 his then lawyer, Yasser Helal admitted that Mokhtar’s North Brunswick, New Jersey residence had been raided by Homeland Security agents who seized computer files and other records.

The principal in the terror funding case is a British citizen, Babar Ahmad who created a website – http://www.azzam.com – in 1996 which was used to funnel money to al-Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

Regarding that plot, government prosecutors stated, “a concerted effort existed between the administrators of Azzam, including Ahmad, and individuals in the U.S….to further the goals of Azzam, that is, to solicit funds for blocked organizations, namely the Taliban and the Chechen Mujahideen, in an effort to support their goals.”

Mokhtar’s alleged place in this terror conspiracy was in creating and maintaining mirror sites – including http://www.minna.com, which was is cited by authorities in the Ahmad case – which served to function in the place of azzam.com which was shut down post 9/11.

The U.S. has been trying to extradite Ahmad since his arrest and has gained friends in high places including a participant in the U.N’s Oil For Food scandal, George Galloway, also a member of the British parliament.

Indicating that the Islamists are increasingly turning to cyber resources to further jihad:

“The war is not just a legal war or a military war, but it’s an information war and you’ve got to fight it through the press and the Web as much as anything else,” said Bilal Patel, a spokesman for a British Web site called Stoppoliticalterror.com, which has publicized Ahmad’s case and worked on his behalf. “The most effective military jihad these days is to use the Internet to spread your ideas, and to use the power of words.”

Mokhtar’s current lawyer is Abed Awad, the director of the Arab-American Democratic Caucus. Abed is an apologist for terror, upon the death of Yasser Arafat he stated, “even detractors and opponents of Arafat still recognize his contribution to his people’s aspirations…Even if you disagreed with President Arafat and his political style, do you not have the respect … for the people of Palestine who are under occupation, who have been devastated and displaced for over 40 years.”

Mokhtar is deeply connected to the Islamist power structure in the United States, in 2006 he attended the North American Imams Federation [NAIF] annual conference in Minneapolis along with people such as Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing and Keith Ellison [a former disciple of Louis Farrakhan] and the nation’s first Muslim congressman.

It was at the conclusion of this three-day affair that the “flying imams” incident took place, which featured among others Omar Shahin, president of the NAIF [imam at an al-Qaeda connected Arizona mosque – the Islamic Center of Tucson] being removed from an airliner after acting suspiciously like terrorists while boarding the flight.

The Council on American Islamic Relations is funding a discrimination lawsuit brought by the imams, designed to scuttle current airport security procedures and stop citizens from reporting suspicious activity they might observe at U.S. airports.

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