Mark Deli Siljander, a former Michigan Senator, a Republican when he was in the House, was charged Wednesday of money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying Senators for an Islamic charity which authorities say was secretly sending funds to terrorists. The Islamic American Relief Agency is supposed to have paid Siljander $50,000, money that was stolen from the US Agency for International Development.
The IARA is charged with sending $130,000 to Gulbudin Hekmatyar a mujahedeen leader who carried out terror attacks along with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.Siljander was hired by the charity to lobby the Senate Finance Committee to remove the charity from the panel's list of suspected terror fund raisers. Siljander accepted in interviews with the FBI that he had indeed received the money, but it was for writing a book on Islam and Christianity, and not for any lobbying work. The IARA was raided by the FBI in 2004 and its assets have been frozen since. The charity is also accused of trnsferring $i.4 million to Iraq via Jordan, between 1991 to 2003, while Iraq was under various US and UN sanctions.
Siljander, IARA and some of its officers have been charged with theft, money laundering, aiding terrorists and conspiracy.