In October 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department designated IARA as a global terrorist organization, citing ties to Bin Laden.
By Shula Rosen
Fatten Fathy Elkomy, the mother of Michigan political candidate Abdul El-Sayed, worked for an Islamic charity for several years before the U.S. government designated the organization over allegations that it provided financial support to Osama bin Laden and other terrorist groups, The Midwesterner reported.
Elkomy worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency from 1999 until at least 2004, according to the report.
The organization, also known as the Islamic African Relief Agency, operated dozens of offices internationally and described its work as providing humanitarian assistance, including health care and support for orphans and disadvantaged people in conflict areas.
In October 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department designated IARA as a global terrorist organization, alleging that its overseas branches had provided financial assistance to bin Laden.
“Information available to the U.S. shows that the overseas branches IARA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to UBL in 1999,” the Treasury said at the time, using an abbreviation for bin Laden.
The organization was also accused of supporting Hamas, the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
Elkomy was never accused of wrongdoing or charged with a terrorism-related crime. In a 2004 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she denied connections between IARA and terrorists and described her work as humanitarian.
“I’ve been working there serving orphans and children with at least one deceased parent, and it breaks my heart they’re not going to get any help,” Elkomy said.
IARA-US was charged by the Department of Justice in March 2007 over the illegal transfer of money to Iraq.
None of the people cited in the federal case against IARA were charged with terrorism-related offenses.
IARA-USA later pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by illegally funneling nearly $1.4 million to Iraq and agreed to dissolve in 2016.
“The plea agreement acknowledges that, due to its designation as a specially designated global terrorist and the subsequent blocking of all its property, IARA has no funds readily available to it to pay any fine,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in July 2016.
El-Sayed’s parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s. They later separated and each remarried.
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