An Islamic cleric who worked at a Brooklyn, N.Y., mosque that served as the gathering place for the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing has been arrested on charges that he raised $20 million in recent years for Osama bin Laden.
Mohammad Al Hasan Al-Moayad was extradited from Germany to the U.S. last week to face charges that he helped bankroll terror attacks around the world, the Justice Department told the Los Angeles Times.
Al-Moayad was nabbed in Frankfurt 11 months ago after allegedly admitting to an undercover FBI informant that he funneled cash, weapons and communication equipment to both al-Qaeda and the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
In a series of meetings at a Frankfurt hotel, Al-Moayad acknowledged bankrolling "mujahedeen fighters" in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Kashmir, governmnet prosecutors allege. He also confessed to personally delivering $20 million directly to bin Laden, with much of the cash coming from contributions made in the U.S.
Brooklyn's Al-Farouq Mosque, where some of Al-Moayad's money was raised, has long been linked to terrorist activity.
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik" who was convicted of plotting to blow up the United Nations and several New York bridges and tunnels, served as the mosque's imam in the early 1990s, according to the Associated Press.
Several of the perpetrators of the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing were followers of Rahman and worshipped at the Al-Farouq mosque.
El-Sayyed Nosair, who was convicted in the 1990 slaying of Israeli activist Rabbi Meir Kahane, also worshipped at the Brooklyn mosque.
Andrew Palladino contributed to this report.
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