Benevolence International Foundation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) was a purported nonprofit charitable trust based in Saudi Arabia. It was a front for al-Qaeda and is now banned worldwide by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267.^[1] It was founded by Adel bin Abdul-Jalil Batterjee (Arabic: عادل بن عبد الجليل بترجي ‎) of Jeddah, who is now personally embargoed by the UN^[1] and by the US Department of the Treasury.^[2] BIF's offices had been in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Sarajevo and Zenica), Canada, China, Croatia, Georgia (Duisi and Tbilisi), the Netherlands, Pakistan (Islamabad, Peshawar), the Palestinian Territories, Russia (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Moscow), Saudi Arabia (Riyadh and Jeddah), Sudan, Tajikistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yemen.^[1] It was known as the Benevolence International Fund in Canada and Bosanska Idealna Futura in Bosnia.

The group stated that it was "helping those afflicted by wars. BIF first provides short-term relief such as emergency food distribution, and then moves on to long term projects providing education and self-sufficiency to the children, widowed, refugees, injured and staff of vital governmental institutions."

[edit] History

Benevolence International Corporation is said to have been started in 1988 by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa of Jeddah, the brother in law of Osama bin Laden. Back then, it was known as an "import-export" company. It is said that this group was a front for the Abu Sayyaf group.

Meanwhile, another group known as the Islamic Benevolence Committee was founded in both Jeddah and Peshawar, Pakistan by Batterjee. The group was a "charity" that openly supported fighters against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In 1992, the Benevolence International Corporation in the Philippines folded visible operations, while the Islamic Benevolence Committee was renamed to Benevolence International Foundation. The Filipino group would become a group set up to attack U.S. interests in the Philippines. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is said to have led the rest of the group.

The group was moved to the United States, with Enaam Arnaout as the director. The organization first set shop in Plantation, Florida. Arnaout married an American woman and obtained citizenship to the United States. In 1993, the organization's headquarters moved to Chicago, Illinois.

In late 1994, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa travelled to the United States to meet with Mohamed Loay Bayazid, who was the president of Benevolence International at the time.

[edit] Prosecution

Khalifa and Bayazid were arrested in Mountain View, California (near San Francisco) in December 1994. The FBI received communications from the Philippines that Khalifa was funding Operation Bojinka, a terrorist plot that was foiled on January 6, 1995. However, Khalifa was deported to Jordan by the INS in May 1995. The Jordanian court acquitted Khalifa, and he is currently in Saudi Arabia. Bayazid was also let go. His whereabouts are unknown.

On November 19, 2002, the group was classified as a terrorist group funder by the United States Department of Treasury.^[3]

The U.S. Government alleged that the group sent money and communications to Osama bin Laden, purchased rockets, mortars, rifles, bayonets, dynamite, and other bombs for Al-Qaida members in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and redirecting funds meant for charity purposes to purposes related to terrorism. The U.S. government also alleged that the group was aiding the travel of terrorists, including Khalifa, Bayazid, and al-Qaeda co-founder Mamdouh Salim, and was coordinating the escape of BIF members from Bosnian police.

During a sentencing hearing in August 2003, U.S. 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.^[4]

These allegations were withdrawn as part of a plea bargain, presumably due to insufficient of evidence.^[5] In February 2003, Enaam Arnaout pleaded guilty to subverting $300,000 to $400,000 of BIF's charitable funds to provide boots, tents, and uniforms for rebels in Chechnya and Bosnia. The plea bargain allowed for him to provide information to prosecutors as long as charges that are related to Al-Qaida are dropped. He publicly denies any link to the group.