NY Mosque Leaders Indicted
Grand Jury Indicts Two N.Y. Mosque Leaders.
ALBANY, N.Y.�Sep 29, 2005 —�A federal grand jury has handed up new indictments charging two leaders of an area mosque with conspiring to support terrorists, the U.S. Attorney said Thursday.
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.