Thread: Illegal alien pleads guilty to contributing terrorist group

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 894430.htm

Illegal immigrant pleads guilty to contributing to terrorist group

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
Knight Ridder Newspapers

DETROIT - (KRT) - A 34-year-old man received a painful lesson Tuesday about holding house parties to raise money for Hezbollah_a 4 1/2 -year prison sentence.

"I didn't mean to commit any crime or cause any inconvenience to the American people," a sobbing Mahmoud Youssef Kourani told U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland through an interpreter.

Kourani, an illegal immigrant who has been in custody since his 2003 arrest in another case, begged Cleland for mercy so he could return to his wife and ailing sons in Lebanon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell urged Cleland to be tough.

"The U.S. government is taking seriously any contributions to Hezbollah," Chadwell said of the Lebanon-based organization that has been designated by the United States as a terrorist group. He said the message Cleland should send to Hezbollah with the sentence is: "Don't come here."

Kourani pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison.

The prosecution said he conducted meetings in his home in late 2002 where guest speakers from Lebanon solicited donations for Hezbollah. The meetings happened between Nov. 6 and Dec. 6, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The government said the money was intended for Hezbollah's orphans of martyrs program to benefit the families of suicide bombers and others killed in Hezbollah operations or by the group's enemies.

Hezbollah, made up of Shiite militants, is a major force in Lebanese society and politics. It opposes the West and Israel and seeks a Muslim fundamentalist government like Iran's.

It has been blamed for terrorist attacks against Americans and Israelis, including the 1983 suicide truck bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen.

Kourani, who entered the United States illegally from Mexico in 2001 and took up residence in Dearborn, Mich., has been in custody since May 3, 2003, when he was arrested for harboring an illegal immigrant. An immigration judge sentenced him to 6 months in jail in that case and ordered him deported .

Kourani's lawyer, William Swor of Detroit, told Cleland that Kourani isn't a violent man and wasn't accused of plotting violent activity in the Hezbollah case.

He urged Cleland to give him some consideration for being held incommunicado in the Wayne County Jail.

Cleland responded by taking 6 months off the 60-month maximum sentence.

Kourani is the second person in 16 months to plead guilty to a terrorism charge in federal court in Detroit.

In December 2003, Hassan M. Makki , then 42, of Dearborn was sentenced to 57 months in prison for providing more than $2,000 to Hezbollah from proceeds of a North Carolina-to-Detroit cigarette smuggling scheme.

Yeah they all just sneak in to find work, huh Jorge.