Jihad money?: Islamic Relief Worldwide & Islamic Relief USA. Where does the money go?

Where the money from UK tax payers is going to? To the ones that want to kill us?

Source: http://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/islamic-relief-worldwide-islamic-relief-usa/

September 7, 2011

The Obama administration’s Department of Agriculture has gotten in a bit of trouble lately for touting its relationship with Islamic Relief USA.  IR-USA is the biggest Islamic charity in the U.S., and defenders of the USDA policy will no doubt point to IR-USA’s four-star charity rating and its shining reputation as one of America’s best Muslim nonprofit organizations.
But unpleasant information has been coming out lately about both IR-USA* and its parent organization, the U.K.-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW).  Today, Money Jihad highlights the cash flow and financial closeness between the supposedly separate IR-USA and IRW organizations.
IRW has always been troublesome because of 1) its cooperation with Union of Good (pro-Hamas) charities, 2) the ties of its leaders to the Muslim Brotherhood; as the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report recently noted:

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) is headquartered in the U.K. where one it’s trustees listed in U.K. charity records is Ibrahim El-Zayat, a leader in both the European and the German Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. El-Zayat is also a trustee of the U.K. branch of Islamic Relief. Islamic Relief Worldwide is also listed as a company in the U.K where records indicate that Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, the former head of the Federation of islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) and President of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) has been a director at one time. Both FIOE and the MAB are part of the U.K. and European Muslim Brotherhood. Another former director of the company Islamic Relief Worldwide is Issam Al-Bashir who, as previous posts have discussed, is a former Minister of Religious Affairs in the Sudan and who has held numerous positions associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. In a number of European countries, the local branch of Islamic Relief is also tied to the local Muslim Brotherhood organization.

3) Pamela Geller recently alleged more concrete nefarious activity by IRW:

• “IRW received $50,000 from a front for Osama bin Laden in 1999, and has given millions to the jihadists in Chechnya.”
• “IRW official Iyaz Ali has admitted to aiding Hamas while serving as project coordinator at IRW’s Gaza branch in late 2005 and early 2006.”
• “The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs also noted:  ‘The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas’ infrastructure.’”

But what is the precise legal and financial relationship between IRW and IR-USA?  IRW itself calls IR-USA a “fundraising partner” in a map they created to show their global reach:

Islamic Relief Worldwide's Map

IR-USA, obviously aware of the questionable status of IRW, goes out of its way on its website to describe itself as one of IRW’s “legally separate and independent affiliates (also referred to as ‘partner offices’).”
Nevertheless, IR-USA also applauds IRW as “the catalyst, coordinator and implementer of the Islamic Relief family’s relief and development projects around the globe”:

IR-USA's version of its IRW association

However, as we have noted before, Islamic Relief USA is one of Islamic Relief Worldwide’s largest non-governmental donors.  IR-USA gave $9.4 million to IRW in 2009, $5.9 million in 2008, and $4.8 million in 2007.
IR-USA can use lawyer-speak to prove that they’re legally separate entities, but money talks.  IR-USA wouldn’t simply give $20 million over a three-year period to an organization that it wasn’t close to.
*  A high-ranking Department of Justice official recently impugned Islamic Relief USA as a conduit for terrorist funds.
Additionally, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report writes:

The IRUSA website identifies Dr. Yaser Haddara as a member of the IRUSA board since 2006 and its chairman until May 2011. According to his profile, Dr. Haddra has been active in the Muslim Society of America (MAS), the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC). Previous posts have discussed the relationship between Islamic Relief USA and the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, an Islamic charter school with strong connections to the Muslim American Society (MAS). The MAS was established in 1993 by leaders of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and a Hudson Institute report has discussed the relationship of the MAS to both the Egyptian and U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The same Hudson report also identifies ISNA as an important part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Other posts have explored the Muslim Brotherhood ties of the MAC.

The evil: Jihad :: Jihad victims will bring Iran to account

Jihad victims will bring Iran to account

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK

08/09/2012 04:03

After court victory for ’83 barracks bomb victims, lawyer says forcing Tehran to pay billions will make cost of terrorism too high.

Photo: REUTERS/Stringer .

The lawyer representing victims of Hezbollah’s 1983 Beirut barracks bombing said on Wednesday that a recent court ruling ordering Iran to pay $167 million in damages was another step toward making it accountable for state-sponsored terrorism.
Virginia-based attorney Joseph Peter Drennan, representing the families of eight US marines killed in the bombing, told The Jerusalem Post that the judgment would teach Tehran that sponsoring terrorism was not only cowardly but also expensive.

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“Our mantra has always been that the best way of fighting state-sponsored terrorism is to make the cost of that terrorism unacceptably high,” Drennan said.
The ruling in the case, known as Amy Battle Taylor et al v. Iran, is the latest in a series of courtroom victories for victims of the Beirut barracks bombing, which killed 241 US servicemen and wounded many others. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia first held Iran responsible for the bombing in 2007, and since then has ordered it to pay a total of $9.5 billion to victims in several lawsuits.
According to court documents, the 1983 Beirut bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack against the US prior to September 11, 2001, and the largest nonnuclear explosion that had ever been detonated. It destroyed the barracks building.
Evidence later showed that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack, which it perpetrated using massive technological and material support from Iran and its Intelligence and Security Ministry.
Under US law, victims of state-sponsored terrorism have a right to bring federal suit against foreign states that sponsor terrorist acts, via an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Ruling in the case, the full name of which is Amy Battle Taylor et al v. the Islamic Republic of Iran, Lamberth said that “sponsoring terrorism has become an expensive activity for Iran and its associates.
“The court applauds the plaintiffs’ persistent efforts to hold Iran accountable for its cowardly support of terrorism,” Lamberth continued.
“The court concludes that defendant Iran must be punished to the fullest extent legally possible for the bombing in Beirut on October 23, 1983. This horrific act impacted countless individuals and their families, a number of whom receive awards in this lawsuit.”
In March, the same court awarded $44.6m. in damages against Iran to plaintiffs Jeffrey P. O’Brien and Daniel Lane Gaffney, two American servicemen wounded in the bombing, and their family members.
One more case, Spencer v. Iran, is still pending in the court, and according to Drennan more claimants may be added.
In addition, another group of Beirut barracks bombing victims may file a separate suit at a later date, Drennan said.
“With these judgments, we see a real prospect of full accountability [against Iran] on the horizon,” he added.
Drennan, who described how he had taken many depositions in the suits against Iran including from mothers who lost their sons in the Beirut bombing, said that the pain and misery this and other terrorist attacks caused is “incalculable.”
“This is the reason that terror is employed by Iran as a political tool,” he said. “But through these lawsuits we intend that the Beirut bombing will stand out in history as being the terror act that sounded the death knell for state-sponsored terror.”
By ordering Iran to pay the victims not only compensation but also punitive damages – effectively a fine a court imposes on a defendant to deter similar acts – at a rate 3.44 times higher than the compensation awarded, the court makes terrorism a costly tool for Iran, Drennan said.
“These are significant punitive damages, and they have the effect of making the cost of state-sponsored terror unacceptable,” he added. “In the final reckoning, Iran will find that the ultimate cost of the bombing will far exceed any benefits it thought it got from this cowardly act.”
Although plaintiffs in the lawsuits have not been successful in seizing Iranian assets that could be used to pay the judgements, Drennan said this could soon change, noting that there is an emerging political consensus in the US that Iran should be held accountable for its terrorist acts.
The latest ruling against Tehran came shortly after Congress passed the Iran Sanctions Bill, which contains provisions that will make it easier for American victims of the Beirut barracks bombing to collect their judgments against Iran.
The bill includes a provision that will change part of federal law, allowing assets seized from the Iranian government to be allocated to victims of both the Beirut bombing and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 14 US airmen.
Victims and their families say they are hopeful that the bill will allow them to collect on their judgments against Iran, including from an account in Citibank in New York City, which they say holds almost $2b. in Iranian funds.
Luxembourg-based clearing house and bank Clearstream is allegedly holding around $2b. of Iranian debt-securities in that Citibank account.
Last August, the plaintiffs in one of the Beirut barracks bombing lawsuits, Peterson v.
Iran, sued Clearstream over the assets. The courts ordered the account to be frozen, a move that Clearstream, which denies holding money for Iran, has opposed.
“We await a final decision on our efforts to obtain turnover of the seized accounts, but we are cautiously optimistic that we will prevail,” Drennan said.
On the issue of whether the plaintiffs in the cases against Iran will find other sources of Iranian funds to attach against the court rulings, Drennan pointed to the recent report the New York State Department of Financial Services filed, which alleged that the UK’s Standard Chartered bank schemed with the Iranian regime to conceal more than $250b. in illegal transactions.
“The magnitude of the transactions involved suggest the existence of huge sums of cash that are being moved around the globe by Iran, that remain to be identified and secured to satisfy the judgement,” Drennan said.
“We will be relentless in pursuing justice for our clients.”

Source: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=280599