Enaam Arnout Facing America's Justice System

Enaam Arnout Facing America's Justice System: He helped Oppressed Muslims.
Steve Emerson's Zionist hand at play. 
New Trend Magazine
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1561.htm


Just this year, Enaam Arnaout, 51, was reunited with his children for the first time in over 14 years. They went through a lot of hardship to escape the war in Syria and come to the US for high school. Arnaout is a Syrian American who did immeasurable charity work overseas with Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), for which he served 10 years in prison, including 2 1/2 years in isolation and 3 1/2 years at CMU Terre Haute.

Arnaout just finished his supervised release. Now that he's finally a free man, settled with his kids, the US government is trying to revoke his citizenship. It's very odd because the CIA and FBI already decided he's not a threat. He is not even on the no-fly list. The US government gave him permission in 2011 and 2012 to travel abroad to see his elderly, ill mother. This is obviously pure harassment.

Arnaout entered a plea agreement in 2003 to avoid the risk of spending the rest of his life in prison as other Islamic charity founders are doing. On this basis, the government is now claiming that he lied on his citizenship application, which stated that he had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested. Arnaout became a citizen in 1993 through marriage to an American woman, Nancy Catherine Noyes in 1989.

Arnaout told New Trend that when he was in college in Pakistan, he met a lot of people at the local community gatherings when he was doing relief work, but that was the extent of association. The accusation reads:

"Memberships and organizations," instructs the applicant to, "list your present and past membership in or affiliation with every organization, association, fund, foundation, party, club, society, or similar group in the United States or in any other place." In response to the instruction in Part 9 of his INS Form N-400, Defendant stated, "None."

The government is claiming that from January 1989 until June 1990, less than one year, Arnaout was an employee of Lajnat Al-Birr Al-Islamiah ("LBI"), also known as the Islamic Benevolence Committee, to raise funds in Saudi Arabia to provide support to the mujahideen, Osama bin Laden and Gulbuddin Hekmatyer.

"Defendant provided mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan with supplies and logistical support. By providing the mujahedeen with support and or money, Defendant knowingly affiliated himself with various organizations and associations that claimed to repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Accordingly, Defendant's statement in Part 9 of his INS Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, filed on April 8, 1993, that he had no present or past membership in or affiliation with any organization or association was false."

The United States Department of Treasury designated Hekmatyer as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2003, while bin Laden and al Qaeda were blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, although the FBI does not officially consider bin Laden to be a suspect.

The government's complaint goes on to smear BIF. This is particularly low, since BIF was aiding Bosnians, Kosovar Albanians, Chechens and others who were being targeted for genocide in the post-USSR era. As in Afghanistan, the US was also supporting these groups militarily so there was no crime involved in helping them at the time.

"Beginning in May 1993, BIF, through its employees, solicited donations from

the public by purporting that BIF and its related overseas offices were a charitable organization involved solely in humanitarian work for the benefit of civilian populations. In fact, the objectives of the BIF were to support the activities of mujahedeen fighters in various areas of the world by raising funds and providing support to mujahedeen and others engaged in violence and armed confrontation. This included providing support to al-Qa'ida and Hezb-e-Islami," claims the government.

This might sound plausible, except that the US then completely undermines its own case by overdoing its case, venturing into the territory of "guilt by association." For the next several paragraphs the complaint goes on and on about various terrorist attacks against US interests in various countries that were blamed on al Qaeda in later years, but that BIF was not at all involved with.

While the government uses a lot of inflammatory statements and spurious claims regarding association with terrorists, who may or may not even be guilty of what they are accused of, in order to make Arnaout sound scary. However, their case is actually quite mundane and does not even clearly accuse Arnaout to have been a member of any of these organizations.

"Defendant lacked the good moral character necessary for naturalization because he provided false testimony to obtain an immigration benefit... Because Defendant admitted to committing and was convicted for an aggravated felony, he was statutorily ineligible to naturalize for lack of good moral character," the government concludes.

This list of associations and accusations is so ridiculous that it is obvious that the government is relying on Zionist "intelligence" coming from Steve Emerson, who is known for compiling such pseudo-information in order to commit treason against the US for Israel by engaging in conspiracy against rights of Muslims in America.

Feds to Revoke Charity Head’s Citizenship

 TMO 

On the night of July 23, 2014 Enaam Arnaout, 51, CEO of the former Islamic charity, Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), learned from the TV news that the US government had filed legal documents to strip him of his citizenship.

Arnaout told TMO that the next day, July 24, a SWAT team driving dark SUVs showed up where he works and behaved in an intimidating manner as US Marshalls served Arnaout his “Complaint to Revoke Citizenship” papers.

Naturally, his employers were not too happy.

One of the Marshalls spoke to Arnaout smiling as if he knew him. “When did you get out?” he asked.

Arnaout answered him, “I got out four years ago and finished my probation.”

“OK, this is something new,” the US Marshall replied.

This draconian tactic of denaturalization has generally only been applied against accused war criminals, usually World War II era Nazis, although in 2007, Rasmi Khader Almallah was stripped of his US citizenship due to his connection with another persecuted Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation. He currently resides in Jordan.

In 2013, a Rwandan was sentenced to ten years in prison for naturalization fraud in addition to losing his citizenship based on war crimes allegations.

Arnaout received US citizenship in 1994 through marriage to his former wife, Nancy Catherine Noyes, a Florida nurse whom he met traveling in Pakistan.

“Denaturalization is required when an alien has concealed material facts or made willful misrepresentations which aided in the receipt of naturalization… Accordingly, Defendant’s naturalization must be revoked,” the government is now demanding.

Arnaout is accused of naturalization fraud on two issues: First, he claimed not to have worked for any organization other than BIF, designated by the US Department of Treasury as financiers of terrorism in 2002, and a telemarketing company.

“Defendant provided mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan with supplies and logistical support. By providing the mujahedeen with support and or money, Defendant knowingly affiliated himself with various organizations and associations that claimed to repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan,” reads the complaint, which makes sweeping claims about connections and links to numerous terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda, no doubt supplied by the “intelligence” fraud Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project.

Secondly, the complaint states that in his naturalization application, Arnaout claimed not to have committed any crime for which he had not been arrested. In 2003, believing that he would not be able to get a fair trial in post-9/11 America, the charity head accepted a plea bargain. Government prosecutors are saying that he pled guilty, therefore he committed a crime and thus lied in his citizenship application.

Arnaout entered into the plea agreement in 2003, in which he pled guilty to a single count of racketeering. In that agreement, the prosecution acknowledged that neither Arnaout nor BIF had acted contrary to the interests of the United States, or had any ties to Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. Arnaout’s statement of guilt acknowledges subverting on the order of $300,000 to $400,000 of charitable funds (out of a total of about $20,000,000) to buy boots, uniforms, tents, and an ambulance for Bosnian fighters, without the knowledge of the charitable donors. Arnaout also acknowledged that he used BIF funds to provide, in the fall of 1995, hunting boots to civilians and fighters in Chechnya who faced a winter of war against the Russian army, which had invaded Chechnya in 1994. Subsequently, Mr. Arnaout provided uniforms to the justice department of the Chechen government which was being formed in 1997.

Judge Conlon sentenced Arnaout to 136 months in prison. Upon appeal in February 2006, Conlon resentenced Arnaout to 120 months (10 years) in prison.

During the sentencing hearing in August 2003, US District Judge Suzanne Conlon told prosecutors they had “failed to connect the dots” and said there was no evidence that Arnaout “identified with or supported” terrorism. Arnaout will go in front of a different judge regarding his US citizenship.

How ironic, that this deeply religious man, who dedicated his life to providing emergency relief to war torn areas, who funded refugee camps, orphanages, hospitals, and schools for the poor and oppressed from Bosnia to China, is now being accused by the US government of “moral turpitude!”

“There’s an administrative, bureaucratic evil that is going on with respect to this War on Terror that is just unconscionable, it’s just stupid. There doesn’t seem to be any way for whoever’s running this country, primarily the intelligence agencies, to distinguish between people who are real threats and people who aren’t,” Arnaout’s attorney, Thomas A. Durkin told WGNtv.com.

“I am very disappointed that my government would be taking such a draconian position under all the circumstances of this case – particularly after all the tremendous hardships this criminal conviction has already visited upon Mr. Arnaout and his entire family,” wrote Durkin to US attorney Christopher Dempsey.

“Mr. Arnaout did not unlawfully engage in a RICO conspiracy during the naturalization period; nor did he provide false testimony or willfully misrepresent or conceal a material fact during his naturalization proceedings… Any attempt to strip Mr. Arnaout of his citizenship based upon the plea agreement he entered before Judge Conlon in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on February 10, 2003, would violate that agreement which was directly and personally negotiated by US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Proceeding in such a fashion as you describe at this late date would, I submit, also violate a number of other constitutional rights of Mr. Arnaout and two of his children who have obtained naturalization through his citizenship status.”

The Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) has taken on the task of fundraising for Arnaout’s legal expenses.