CHICAGO, Aug 24 (AFP) - The US government may have been too aggressive in its handling of US-based Islamic charities in the wake of the September 11 attacks, according to recently released findings of the panel that investigated the terrorist assaults.
In a report posted on its website at the weekend, the September 11 commission said that the closure of Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation "raises substantial civil liberty concerns."
Federal authorities raided and shuttered the two foundations in December 2001 on suspicion of funneling money to terrorist organisations.
But the two suburban Chicago charities were shuttered before any official finding that they were aiding al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, and the government hasn't proven in court that the charities were guilty of any terrorism-related crimes, the panel noted.
Panel members said that while government concerns in respect of the groups "were not baseless," -- both organisations had been under FBI scrutiny for years because of alleged ties to terrorist organizations -- it was worried by the lack of due process.
The charities' assets were frozen, pending an investigation of the alleged terrorist ties, on the authorisation of just one US Treasury Department official under the controversial USA Patriot Act, the study pointed out.
The approach "raises substantial civil liberty concerns," the report said, because it allows the government to "shut down an organization without any formal determination of wrongdoing."
The investigations of the two charities highlight "the difference between seeing links to terrorists and proving funding of terrorists, and the problem of defining the threshold of information necessary to take disruptive action," the report said.
The observations were made in a section of the report into the September 11 attacks relating to US efforts to combat terror funding that was published on the commission's website Saturday.
The government did bring criminal charges against Enaam Arnaout, the executive director of Benevolence International.
He pleaded guilty to defrauding donors to the charity by diverting money to Islamic fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya, but the government dropped allegations that he aided terrorists.
No criminal charges have been brought against Global Relief, although its co-founder was deported after an immigration judge deemed him to be a security risk.