INTERVIEW-Islamic NGO denies US claim it’s funding bin Laden
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM, Nov 1 (Reuters) – A Sudan-based aid agency denied on Monday U.S. accusations it is funding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Palestinian group Hamas and said the U.S. claim could cause even more suffering to victims of conflicts.
Washington said last month the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA) and five of its senior officials “were providing direct financial support to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist groups.”
Director-General Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman, one of the accused, said the organization was consulting lawyers about taking legal action.
Speaking at the IARA’s run-down Khartoum headquarters, Suleiman said the United States had not contacted the agency about the allegations which it had only learned about through the media.
“If someone accused us of such a serious crime, then they should tell us exactly what that crime was,” said Suleiman, a doctor, who has run the non-governmental organization (NGO) since 1986.
The U.S. Treasury department said last month it was freezing the IARA’s accounts in the United States.
Suleiman said the agency did not have any funds or assets there, but he told Reuters he feared people may now be afraid to donate money to the organization.
The IARA has a dozen offices in the region and Asia, he said. Its biggest operations are in Afghanistan and Sudan. It also works in Iraq, Jordan and Uganda.
Suleiman invited U.S. officials to come and examine the IARA’s accounts.
“But the damage is already done,” he said.
“Now we will have to spend money on suing the U.S. government for these baseless allegations, when the money should be helping those in need.”
Suleiman said he had never had any contact with bin Laden, who lived in Khartoum in the 1990s, nor with the militant Hamas group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis during a Palestinian uprising against occupation. Hamas maintains a presence in Khartoum.
Suleiman said more than 85 percent of the NGO’s funding came from U.N. partnership programs and the rest from philanthropists and Islamic centers.
In its statement, the U.S. Treasury said the IARA was also known as the Islamic American Relief Agency in the United States. Its office were raided by FBI investigators last month.
Suleiman denied any connection between the two groups. He said the IARA had no offices in the United States and he had never been there.