Daily Alert Archives

U.S. Judge Sentences Lebanese Man in Detroit for Aiding Hizballah

(AP/Detroit Free Press) An illegal immigrant from Lebanon was sentenced Tuesday to 4 1/2 years in prison for conspiring to raise money for the Islamic militant group Hizballah. Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, 34, hosted Hizballah fund-raising meetings at his home in suburban Detroit in 2002. The government said Kourani paid a Mexican consular official in Beirut $3,000 for a visa to enter Mexico, then sneaked across the U.S.-Mexican border in 2001 and settled in Dearborn. Federal prosecutors said his brother, Haidar, was chief of military security for the group in southern Lebanon and directed Kourani's U.S. activities. This is at least the sixth case in which suspected Hizballah supporters have been arrested in the Detroit area since 2001.
2005-06-16 00:00:00
Full Article