Remember when federal agents raided an Albany mosque in August 2004?
Two men were arrested on suspicion of planning to buy shoulder-launched missiles.
The men, Yassim Muhhidin Aref, 34 yr, imam of the Majid Al Salam mosque; and Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, 49, founder of the mosque, were suspected of ties to the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to al-Qaida.
The New York Post reported an Iraq connection to the raid. Aref's name, address and telephone number in Albany were all in an address book found by U.S. soldiers during a raid on a terror training camp run by the Ansar al-Islam.
Today, the Associated Press reports a federal grand jury has handed up new indictments charging the two with conspiring to support terrorists:
The superseding indictment returned Thursday also charges Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain with attempting to provide support to Jaish-e-Mohammed, an Islamic extremist group based in Pakistan that is on the State Department's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
Aref also was charged with making a false statement when he answered "none" to an immigration question asking him to list any organizations to which he had belonged. He also was charged with making false statements to the FBI when he was arrested in August 2004 and denied he was a member of the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan. At the time, he also denied knowing Mullah Krekar, believed to be the founder of Ansar-al-Islam, a radical Islamic fundamentalist group.
The two have been free on $250,000 bond since shortly after their arrest in August 2004. The charge of providing material assistance to a terrorist organization is legally more serious charge than the original and could result in the bail being revoked.
Why do these prosecutions take so long?
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