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Toledo Blade - May 4, 2006
Muslim charity says U.S. won't let it defend self
By CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK
Toledo-based KindHearts - a Muslim charity shuttered by the federal government for suspicion of funding terrorism - says the U.S. Treasury Department has denied it access to frozen assets needed to hire lawyers.
Board members say the allegations by Toledo native John Snow's office that KindHearts gave money to Hamas, a terrorist organization and the recent victors in elections held by the Palestinian Authority, are untrue. The decision to deny them access to assets, they say, also leaves the agency legally defenseless.
"With the stroke of a pen and without any judicial review, they have shut down KindHearts and killed it forever," said Jihad Smaili, a Cleveland lawyer and board member.
But federal court records indicate the government's suspicions could be fueled by the intertwined case against three Toledo-area men indicted in February for plotting terrorist acts.
It could hang together or fall apart based on the motivations of the paid confidential informant in the case - a man named Darren L. Griffin, who lived in the LaSalle Apartments downtown. He has owed child support for at least two of the children he has had by three women and declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 1999 after an injury led to his discharge from the Army there at Fort Campbell.
Mr. Griffin's financial problems also led to requests seeking reduction in child-support payments, according to Lucas County court records.
Dubbed "the Trainer" in the federal indictment against the three area men, the 40-year-old is the critical link in the federal case, documents show.
He is known as "Bilal" in the Toledo Muslim community. Sources have said he owned a security company here. He worked for KindHearts part-time for $7 an hour and befriended the three suspects in the local Muslim community.
Mr. Griffin's motivations have become an important issue in at least one defense strategy.
Steve Hartman, the lawyer for Othman El-Hindi, 43, one of the indicted terrorist suspects, said paid informants should be looked at with a jaundiced eye.
"I have real concerns that this guy actually created this whole thing and then took it to the government and used it as a way to get money," Mr. Hartman said.
Also arrested Feb. 21 - 48 hours after KindHearts was closed - were Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, and Wassim I. Mazloum, 24. The three pleaded innocent to the federal charges against them and are being held at a federal prison in Milan, Mich.
A 13-page federal indictment says the Trainer was solicited by Mr. El-Hindi in 2002 for security and bodyguard training. Starting in November, 2004, he secretly informed law-enforcement of the trio's activities and conversations, and he traveled to Jordan with Mr. Amawi in August, 2005, court records state.
Mr. Griffin has disappeared from public view, and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Cleveland has declined to officially detail "the Trainer's" identity. But that office also sought a court order recently to stop defense attorneys in the Toledo case from distributing pictures of Mr. Griffin.
U.S. District Judge James Carr has not ruled on the motion. But, Mr. Griffin is pictured standing next to an American flag in a 2005-06 school district calendar that was widely distributed to residents of the Washington Local School District. He is among a group of military veterans who apparently attended Greenwood Elementary's fourth annual "Veteran Celebration and Patriotic Caroling" event, a photograph of which appeared on the November, 2005, calendar page.
Since the arrests of the three Toledo terrorist suspects, Mr. Smaili said subpoenas continue to be issued to KindHearts board members and employees for records to be turned over.
"It's my belief they are going on a fishing expedition," he said.
Founded in 2002 after the government shut the three largest U.S. Muslim charities, KindHearts raised $2.9 million the first year, $3.9 million in 2003, and $5.1 million in 2004.
The charity underwent a two-year investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, along with two dozen other U.S. Muslim charities, without charges. KindHearts officials said they knew the political climate after Sept. 11, 2001, and painstakingly followed federal laws and guidelines.
The charity set up offices in Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Palestinian territories. By sending funds to its own offices, rather than to foreign nonprofit organizations, KindHearts had tighter control over its distribution, Mr. Smaili said.
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