August 9, 2007 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Federal authorities raided a Muslim charity in Dearborn, Mich., last month and froze its assets, accusing it of having ties to Hezbollah, a Lebanese group that the United States government has designated a terrorist organization.
The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that the charity, the Goodwill Charitable Organization, had sent money to Hezbollah directly and through the Martyrs Foundation, an Iranian group. Charity officials could not be reached for comment.
Authorities raided a second Muslim charity in Dearborn, the Al-Mabarat Charitable Organization, on the same day, but did not freeze its assets or say why it had taken the action.
That move worried some Muslim leaders, who said the news-media attention could scare off potential donors to a charity that may have done nothing wrong.
“If they are not being charged with anything, then why is the media being involved in an ongoing investigation?” asked Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The raids took place just as a federal trial was opening in Dallas against organizers of a former Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, who are accused of sending money to Hamas, a Palestinian group that is also designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
The charity, which was shut down by President Bush several months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, maintained it was a strictly humanitarian organization that helped Palestinian refugees and had no ties to terrorists.
Similar Names
Meanwhile, Goodwill Industries International, the well-known charity that provides job training to people with disabilities or other disadvantages, contacted news-media organizations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to clarify that it was not associated with the Michigan group that was shut down.
“This group is in no way associated with Goodwill Industries International or any of its member organizations,” it said in a statement rushed out the day of the raids.
Christine Nyirjesy Bragale, a spokeswoman at the organization’s headquarters in Rockville, Md., said Goodwill had sent the Michigan charity a letter in March 2001 asking it to “cease and desist” from using the Goodwill name, but the letter was returned as undeliverable.
The Goodwill Charitable Organization described its services on its 2005 tax return as “providing assistance to the unfortunate people in need of emergency medical attention and support of living expenses.” It reported revenue of $167,628 and net assets of $16,583.
The Treasury Department’s statement said that Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group, had instructed its members in the United States to send their contributions to the Goodwill Charitable Organization, which the statement described as a fund-raising office for the Martyrs Foundation.
The Martyrs Foundation raises money for the families of suicide bombers, and its senior leaders were directly involved in Hezbollah’s operations against Israel during the conflict between the two sides last summer, the statement said.
The FBI met with Muslim leaders in Michigan the afternoon of the raids to explain what had happened and try to alleviate any concerns they might have, said Dawn Clenney, a spokeswoman for the agency’s Detroit office.
She said the search warrants for both charities were based on investigations conducted by the FBI’s joint counterterrorism task force in Detroit, but that she could not give further details.
Planning for Ramadan
Mr. Walid, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said local Muslims are concerned about the fate of Al-Mabarat, which is larger and better known than the Goodwill Charitable Organization. “People in the community know Al-Mabarat to be a clean organization,” he said.
Al-Mabarat, which raises money for orphans in Lebanon, said on its 2004 tax return that it had $954,000 in revenue.
Mr. Walid said the group — which has decided not to talk to reporters at this time — is concerned about the impact the raid will have on a fund-raising dinner it has planned for September, during Ramadan, the time that Muslims give the most to charity.
“We’re sensitive to the concerns in the community,” Ms. Clenney, of the FBI, said. “Al-Mabarat is still an ongoing business. It’s open and individuals can do business with them.”
Federal authorities raided another Muslim nonprofit organization in Michigan last September — Life for Relief and Development, in Springfield, which was founded by Iraqi-Americans and provides aid to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries.
Government officials never charged that group with having terrorist ties or with any other crime, but Ms. Clenney said the case is “an ongoing matter.”
Mohammed Alomari, Life for Relief and Development’s administrative director, said the raid has not noticeably dampened the charity’s fund raising, except for a brief period immediately after it took place.
Because authorities seized its computers, the group was unable to raise money during the first week of Ramadan last year, he said. It retrieved the computers after about a week, he said.
