Amoudi’s detention "discredits all official assurances that there is no war on Islam or Muslims," his lawyer said

By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

CAIRO, October 1 (IslamOnline.net) – Prominent Muslim American activist Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who was detained by federal authorities for making unauthorized trips to Libya and dealing with "terrorist groups" repudiated the accusations as "politically motivated" lies, one of his lawyers said.

"I phoned Amoudi after the detention, and he realized that it is a part of a politically-motivated prosecution that has nothing to do with the charges leveled against him," Ashraf Nubani told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the States.

Nubani challenged the federal authorities to have any evidence substantiating the charges against Amoudi, who made a brief appearance at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia on Monday few hours after his arrest at Dulles International Airport upon his return from an extended overseas trip.

A special agent of the U.S. immigration service told the court, in affidavit after the arrest, that Amoudi received and transferred and otherwise dealt in funds from the Libyan permanent mission at the United Nations.

Amoudi also denied in another telephone call with another of his attorneys that claims he had admitted to British investigators receiving money from a man "with a Libyan accent".

"He told me this is untrue, " said Kamal Nawash told IOL over the phone.

But Nawash declined to comment on the claims, also in the affidavit, that Amoudi made at least 10 trips to Libya using American and Yemeni passports.

Nawash hoped the trial of his client "would be fair and just," denying the detention has anything to do with Amoudi’s criticisms of the Bush administration.

"He is just a liberal Muslim, who wants more Muslims to be involved in the U.S. military and politics to be part of America," he asserted.

Amoudi is one of the founders of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, a group that helped create an Islamic chaplain program in the U.S. military, a relation that reportedly raised suspicions of his ties to a Muslim chaplain earlier arrested allegedly for spying at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But Nawash quoted his client as denying this charge as baseless, and said the links are rather ridiculous to make.

"He said he has not had any collaboration with James Yee or presented a forged certificate for him to become a Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military," said the lawyer.

The chaplain program has come under intense scrutiny since the September 10 arrest of Yee, as two senators called for a full investigation of "terrorists' attempts" to recruit members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

No Terror Links

Nawash also said Amoudi vehemently denied connections with terrorist groups as charged.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Steve Ward was quoted by the Washington Post Wednesday, October 1, as saying that Amoudi had a more direct connection with terrorist organizations designated by the U.S. as "terrorist groups", including Palestinian resistance groups and Lebanon’s Hezbollah party.

"Amoudi has no links whatsoever to violence or terrorism. On the contrary, he supported the U.S. war on terrorism," maintained his lawyer.

The affidavit cited the Muslim activist’s comments at a rally in front of the White House in October 2000 in which he voiced his support for Hezbollah and Hamas.

It alleged that the $340,000 Amoudi was carrying when he was detained in London in August en route to Syria "was intended for delivery in Damascus to one or more of the terrorists or terrorist organizations active in Syria."

Palestinian groups have long insisted that they are struggling to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, while Hezbollah had played a central role in ending the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in May, 2000 – though Israel still occupies the strategic Shebaa Farms area in southern Lebanon and Syria’s Golan Heights.

Amoudi reportedly sat calmly throughout the Monday hearing, occasionally shaking his head in disbelief as the affidavit was given.

 ‘Political Detention’

The detention triggered a furor in the Muslim community, given Amoudi’s role in funding some of the Muslim American groups and serving on their boards.

"This is part of a general case of targeting Muslim activists in the united States using alleged secret evidence," Khaled Toorani of the American Islamic Organization for Al-Aqsa told IOL nine hours after Amoudi’s detention.

Toorani warned that these arrests would draw the United States back to a stage of political detention it has never seen since some 50 years.

Nawash, one of Amoudi’s lawyers, said he received "hundreds of calls that still unabated asking about Amoudi".

"It sent shockwaves here," he said, warning that the U.S. strict measures should not "confuse good people for bad ones."

Nubani said the detention also does a "very bad service to Washington as it discredits all official assurances that there is no war on Islam or Muslims".