Pakistan to Clamp Down on Charities Linked to Militants
THE TELEGRAPH: Pakistan has threatened to arrest charities linked to Islamist militants amid fears their role in delivering aid to flood victims could undermine the fight against extremists.

Islamist charities, some with alleged links to terrorists who carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, have moved swiftly to fill a void left by a government overwhelmed by a disaster that has left eight million people in desperate need of help. >>> Rob Crilly, Islamabad | Friday, August 20, 2010

Muslim Aid Charity Under Investigation
THE TELEGRAPH: A charity praised by Gordon Brown and the Prince of Wales has been placed under investigation by the Charity Commission following claims it had channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds to groups linked to a banned terrorist organisation.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Chairman of Muslim Aid pictured addressing guests.At a celebratory dinner at the Natural History Museum. Photograph: The Telegraph
According to its own accounts, Muslim Aid paid £325,000 to the Islamic University of Gaza, where leading Hamas figures teach, and £13,998 to the al-Ihsan Charitable Society, designated by the US government as a "sponsor of terrorism" and a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Security sources also claim that Muslim Aid has helped channel a further £210,600 to six other organisations in the Gaza Strip since July 2009, all of which they say are also linked to Hamas.

Despite repeated approaches for comment over more than a week, Muslim Aid has refused to deny these claims.

In a statement, the Charity Commission said: "We take very seriously allegations of links between charities and terrorist activity, and consider funding of terrorist organisations to be a 'zero tolerance' issue.

The Commission has opened an investigation into Muslim Aid in light of these allegations and is working with the charity to address the issues raised." >>> Andrew Gilligan | Saturday, April 03, 2010

No Convictions in Trial Against Muslim Charity
THE NEW YORK TIMES: DALLAS, Oct. 22 — A deadlocked federal jury here did not convict any leaders of a Muslim charity who were charged with supporting Middle Eastern terrorists, and the judge today declared a mistrial in what has been widely viewed as the government’s flagship terror-financing case.

The case, involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and five of its backers, is the government’s largest and most complex legal effort to shut down what it contends is American financing for terrorist organizations in the Middle East. President Bush announced he was freezing the charity’s assets in 2001, saying that the radical Islamic group Hamas had “obtained much of the money it pays for murder abroad right here in the United States.”

But at the trial, the government did not allege that the foundation, which was based in a Dallas suburb, paid directly for suicide bombings. Instead, the prosecution said, the foundation supported terrorism by sending more than $12 million to charitable groups, known as zakat committees, which build hospitals and feed the poor.

The prosecution said the committees were controlled by Hamas and contributed to terrorism by helping Hamas spread its ideology and recruit supporters. The government relied on Israeli intelligence agents, using pseudonyms, to testify in support of this theory.

But prosecutors appeared to have made little headway in convincing the jury. No Convictions in Trial Against Muslim Charity (more) By Leslie Eaton

Mark Alexander