NEW YORK, Jan 28 (AFP) - Lawyers for a Yemeni cleric on trial here accused the US government of mounting a "reality show" to lure his client to Germany and goad him into donating to Al-Qaeda and Hamas.
The accusation was part of opening arguments in the trial of Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, 56, and his assistant, Mohammed Zayed, 31, also from Yemen. Both were arrested in Frankfurt in January 2003.
"This ailing and vulnerable man, that was devoted to his charities, was lured to Germany attracted by the money he needed for his charities and medical treatment," said William Goodman, attorney for al-Moayad, who suffers from diabetes.
The sting operation, Goodman said, speaking in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, "has actors, directors and sound technicians, and was essentially a show, a reality show."
Mohamed Alanssi, an FBI informer, persuaded the accused men to travel to Germany to meet a wealthy American, supposedly a former Black Panther, who wanted to donate 2.5 million dollars to "the jihad" but who was in reality an FBI agent.
Conversations during the meeting in a Frankfurt hotel were recorded and now form the basis of the charges against the Yemeni.
Prosecutors said Al-Moayad raised the names of bin Laden, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal and Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, the blind cleric from Egypt who was jailed in the United States after the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in New York.
The charges will also use a video recording of Al-Moayad made in 2002 in Yemen, showing the imam celebrating after a Hamas suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv.
The defense has highlighted gaps in the recordings of the Frankfurt conversations and the translations from Arabic made by the Yemeni informer.
Alanssi, the informer, was seriously injured in November when he set himself on fire outside the White House in Washington. He had complained about his treatment by the FBI after helping with several investigations.
The prosecution said it had not decided whether Alanssi would give evidence.
Prosecutor Kelly Moore said al-Moayad, "who calls himself Osama bin Laden's sheikh," said: "I am more aware of the Islamic laws than Osama bin Laden, I used to teach them to him."
Moore said of the suspects in the hotel videotapes: "They talked about the use of charities to divert money to jihad."
The trial seeks to establish whether the defendants were looking for money for their own charities in Yemen or for terrorist groups.
01/28/2005 20:54 GMT - AFP