US former congressman indicted in terror funding case

A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted a former US lawmaker for his links to a charity that sent funds to an Afghanistan-based supporter of al Qaeda through banks in Pakistan.

Republican former representative Mark Deli Siljander was named in a 42-count indictment against the Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), charged with “engaging in prohibited financial transactions for the benefit of US-designated terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

Siljander, 57, faces money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges in the case.

Siljander represented a congressional district in the midwestern state of Michigan from 1981 to 1987. He now owns and heads a public relations company.

The indictment “paints a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein.

The organization “allegedly sent funds to Pakistan for the benefit of a specially designated global terrorist with ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” said John Wood, US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

The indictment alleges that Siljander “engaged in money laundering and obstruction of a federal investigation in an effort to disguise IARA’s misuse of taxpayer money that the government had provided for humanitarian purposes.”

According to the indictment, the group sent some 130,000 dollars in 2003 and 2004 to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan that Hekmatyar had access to.

Other defendants include Mubarak Hamed, 51, a naturalized US citizen from Sudan; Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 53, a naturalized US citizen born in Libya; and Ahmad Mustafa, 55, a US resident and citizen of Iraq.