Originally Posted - March 8, 2007

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ALBANY---The imam and pizzeria owner, convicted in October of money laundering, conspiracy and attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization, have each been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison and three years of post-release supervision, half of the term that prosecutors had sought.

Imam Yassin Aref, 36, and Mohammed Hossain, 51, appeared before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Thomas J. McAvoy Thursday.

Aref had reportedly been the target of an FBI sting operation investigating an alleged terrorist plot, a fictitious plot to sell a shoulder-fired missile to terrorists who were supposedly targeting a Pakistani diplomat.

After they are released from prison, both must forfeit $40,000 and pay special assessments-Aref, $1,000 and Hossain, $4,000.

Aref had read a long statement before sentence, telling the judge that "If you give me the death penalty, I will take it proudly….not because I am an arrogant or a proud person, but because they know and you know and everybody knows, I did nothing".

Hossain, a Bangladesh immigrant, is the founding member of Masiid As-Salam, the mosque where Aref had served as the spiritual leader since 2000. Hossain told McAvoy that when the government informant. Shabeh "Malik" Hussain, first approached him, "he had everything I did not; he seemed smart and rich. I struggled everyday. I was just a pizza man. I make good pizza".

In pronouncing Hossain's sentence, McAvoy said that the pizza maker seemed more motivated by greed that terrorist ideology.

After a month-long trial which ended on Oct. 10, an Albany jury found Aref guilty of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, money laundering, conspiracy to provide material support in connection with an attack with a weapon of mass destruction (a shoulder fired surface to air missile), two substantive acts of material support in connection with an attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to provide material support to a known terrorist organization (Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani Islamic extremist group on the State Department's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations), two substantive acts of material support to a designated terrorist organization, and one count of lying to the FBI regarding whether he knew Mullah Krekar, founder of the terrorist group Ansar al Islam.

Hossain was convicted of each of the 27 counts in which he was charged.

The indictment charged Aref and Hossain with agreeing to conduct financial transactions which were intended to conceal the source of cash which they believed to have come from the sale of a surface to air missile to terrorist group JEM for use in an imminent terror attack in New York. Evidence presented at trial showed that, during the summer of 2003, a cooperating witness offered to assist Hossain in obtaining a fraudulent New York State driver's permit for his brother. As the relationship began to develop, Hossain began discussing politics and his view that the September 11th attacks were justified.

Hossain, the owner of several rental properties in Albany, asked the CW for a loan to refurbish his rental properties. Soon thereafter, at the direction of the FBI, the CW set up a proactive undercover money laundering operation. During a videotaped meeting on November 20, 2003, the CW showed Hossain a shoulder fired surface to air missile that the CW claimed to have smuggled into the U.S. through his import/export business. The CW also said that the missile was used by the Mujahid brothers to shoot down airplanes. Hossain reacted by telling the CW, "Good money can be made from this . . .but it's not legal." Hossain also warned the CW that "walls have ears" and to be wary of the FBI. Hossain also continued to press the CW for money. In a subsequent conversation, the CW proposed that Hossain launder $50,000 -- the CW's purported payment for importing the missile -- through his business. Hossain agreed, but insisted on having Aref serve as witness and guarantor to the transactions.

Hossain and Aref met with the CW on Dec. 10, 2003, when the CW again outlined the proposal. The first money laundering transaction took place on Jan. 2, 2004, and continued through August 2004. When the CW told Aref he was working with Jaish-e-Mohammed, Aref recognized it as a terrorist organization, and warned the CW, "they classificate that organization with the group which they call the terrorist group," and further warned, that if they find a person has a link to such an organization, "they take them to the jail and they say they support the what, the terrorism." Aref and Hossain were warned once again on Feb. 12, 2004 not to go to New York because the missile would soon be used in an attack there.

The FBI claimed they had the following seven reasons for targeting Aref: Aref's name and former telephone number in Albany were found in 2003 in three different suspected Ansar-al-Islam camps in Iraq: (1) in Sargat, Iraq, during the March 2003 exploitation of the Khurma SE facility; (2) in Rawah, Iraq in June 2003, following the capture of an insurgent camp, during which 80 insurgents were killed, and manuals, hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were recovered; and (3) in a safe house in Mosul, Iraq in June 2003. Also, Aref's telephone toll records for his Albany, New York telephone reflected fourteen (14) calls between November 1999 and October 2001 to a number in Damascus, Syria, later confirmed to be a number for the Syrian office of the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan. A cooperating individual ("CI") had reported that in October 2001 this number was given to the CI so that the CI could report back to al Qaeda. In addition, a document on the letterhead of Islamic Cintral, Irbil, Iraq dated October 1999 introduced Aref as a representative, and Aref was associated with John Earl Johnson a/k/a Yaya, and with Ali Yaghi, two individuals with known terrorist sympathies.

U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby remarked that the reasons provided ample justification to initiate a sting operation using Hossain to reach Aref.

Suddaby also cited several of Aref's own statements which demonstrate his mindset including a poem allegedly written by Aref in December, 1999.

"Raise the JIHAD sword ...
Raise the Qur'an with blood ...
So we can bring back the freedom for ourselves and the
entire people on this Earth."

Federal prosecutors also cited an entry in Aref's January 1999 diary which read, "Today I met (Brother Abu Sadiq) he is from Libya. He came with a Palestinian brother to my house. They seemed to be clever and MUJAHID, may Allah protect them. We talked about the following points:

1- Paying attention and programming and not independent work.

2- Strive to move the war to America and Israel, make the explosions there.

3- Attacking western targets so we can get the people's attention toward us..."

3-08-07

© 2007 North Country Gazette