Former Michigan Congressman Indicted for Terrorism Support

Former Michigan congressman and delegate to the United Nations, Mark Deli Siljander, was indicted Wednesday on charges of being part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to a supporter of al-Qaida and the Taliban.^[1]

Siljander is charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.^[2] The 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency(IARA) of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying — money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.^[3]

The government asserts that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.^[4]

The indictment accuses IARA of sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated a global terrorist.^[5] The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.^[6]

The indictment says Siljander was hired by IARA in March 2004 to lobby the Senate Finance Committee in an effort to remove the charity from the panel's list of suspected terror fundraisers.^[7] For his work, IARA allegedly paid Siljander with money that had come from U.S. government funding.^[8] The charity was awarded the money years earlier for relief work it promised to perform in Africa, and IARA was supposed to return any unused funds after the relief project ended in 1999.^[9]

Instead it is asserted that Siljander and three IARA officers agreed to cover up the money's origins and use it on the lobbying effort.^[10]

Obstruction of Justice
Under 18 U.S.C. § 1503(a), it is a crime for a person to corruptly influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice. The punishment for a violation of section 1503(a) is a fine, imprisonment for up to 10 years, or both.Federal criminal attorney Douglas McNabb has also previously discussed obstruction of justice in his blog, here; and money laundering, here.

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^[1] Lara Jakes Jordan, Ex-Lawmaker Charged in Terror Conspiracy, Associated Press Newswire, January 16, 2008, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] Id.