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gilliam
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The FBI on Thursday raided an accountant’s West Park office, his home and a building containing both a mosque and an Islamic school, seizing records and computers in a money-laundering probe.
What’s behind the investigation is unclear, but anti-terrorism prosecutors are handling the case. Officials declined to discuss details. And the target of the investigation - Abrar Haque - did not respond to several messages left at his business. His attorney, Mark Devan, declined to comment.
Haque, 43, is a certified public accountant and financial planner who helped launch a small Lorain Avenue mosque 15 years ago. The Islamic Mosque, which has since moved into a former church on Rocky River Drive, was touched by a terror-financing probe three years ago.
In that case, the FBI uncovered a murder and arson plot designed to raise money for “the cause” in Afghanistan.
One of the men who pleaded guilty in that case - Saleh Nawash - was a spiritual leader of the Islamic Mosque. Nawash tried to hire a hit man to have his Lorain Avenue meat shop, Halal Products, torched so he could collect the insurance money and spend part of it financing “the cause” in Afghanistan, home base to al-Qaida and birthplace of various Islamic terror orginizations. Authorities, despite convicting Nawash and another man, never revealed what “the cause” is. And its unclear whether this week’s investigation is connected.
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com …
What’s behind the investigation is unclear, but anti-terrorism prosecutors are handling the case. Officials declined to discuss details. And the target of the investigation - Abrar Haque - did not respond to several messages left at his business. His attorney, Mark Devan, declined to comment.
Haque, 43, is a certified public accountant and financial planner who helped launch a small Lorain Avenue mosque 15 years ago. The Islamic Mosque, which has since moved into a former church on Rocky River Drive, was touched by a terror-financing probe three years ago.
In that case, the FBI uncovered a murder and arson plot designed to raise money for “the cause” in Afghanistan.
One of the men who pleaded guilty in that case - Saleh Nawash - was a spiritual leader of the Islamic Mosque. Nawash tried to hire a hit man to have his Lorain Avenue meat shop, Halal Products, torched so he could collect the insurance money and spend part of it financing “the cause” in Afghanistan, home base to al-Qaida and birthplace of various Islamic terror orginizations. Authorities, despite convicting Nawash and another man, never revealed what “the cause” is. And its unclear whether this week’s investigation is connected.
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com …