Thread: Feds: Ohio Couple Planned to Send Hezbollah $500,000

Feds: Ohio Couple Planned to Send Hezbollah $500,000

Updated: 1 hour 2 minutes ago

Mara Gay Contributor

AOL News

(June 4) -- An Ohio couple plotted to send $500,000 to a terrorist organization in Lebanon, federal officials charge.

Hor and Amera Akl were arrested Thursday and charged with money laundering and conspiracy to provide material support to Hezbollah, a Lebanese group that the United States considers a terrorist organization. Hor and Amera, both 37, HOLD DUAL CITIZENSHIP with the U.S. and Lebanon.

Federal prosecutors say the couple planned to send $500,000 to Hezbollah and agreed to ship $200,000 in cash to the group that was provided to them by an FBI informant during an eight-month investigation.

U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said the arrest of the Ohio pair is yet another reminder that homegrown terrorism is not an idle threat.

"This case demonstrates our continued commitment to prosecuting those who seek to aid terrorists and terrorist organizations, whether they do so from our backyards or abroad," he said in a statement Thursday.

Neighbors said they were shocked about the charges filed against the Akls.

"Very good people. Very nice, very friendly," Bob Lydy, the Akls' next door neighbor, told The Toledo Blade.

If they are convicted of aiding a terrorist group, the husband and wife could be sentenced to 15 years each. But according to The Toledo Blade, the Akls face a number of charges that could put them behind bars for 45 to 55 years.

The FBI reportedly paid the informant over $23,000 for providing authorities with information about the couple, a move that may have helped the informant solve his or her immigration issues. The Toledo Blade reports that immigration charges against the informant and his or her spouse were dropped at the FBI's request. The couple won permanent residency in the U.S. in December 2008.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/f ... 0/19503495

I keep writing that it seems to me that for the U.S to allow Dual Citizenship to adults past 18 is a big mistake and a real threat to our national sovereignty. At that time, I believe those who held this status during their childhoods should be required to chose to which nationality they will pay their allegiance as adults. Many of these dual citizens are allowed to vote in the elections of both the U.S. and their "other" country; sometimes extensions of these foreign elections are being conducted on U.S. soil to allow citizens of those countries to vote (why they don't have written "absentee ballots" like we do is never mentioned).

Whats sad about our current immigration policies is that many who hold citizenship are citizens in name only owing allegiance to other countries, if at some point this isn't brought under control the fragmenting of our country will continue.

I find dual citizenship disgraceful. When my family and I became US citizens, we were required to remounce citizenship in our birth country. We were proud to become US citizens. This travesty going on now cheapens what it means to be a US citizen.

REVOKE that US citizenship, NOW