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July 29, 2013

Supporters of Jailed NY Imam Submit Petition for His Release 
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Supporters of a jailed New York imam have turned in a petition calling
for his conviction to be struck down. Yassin Aref was sentenced to 15
years in prison, along with another mosque leader, in 2007 for
laundering money as part of a fake terror plot invented by the FBI.
Aref’s lawyers now say secret evidence revealed by a Freedom of
Information Act request shows the FBI targeted Yassin Aref because they
mistook him for an al-Qaeda agent named Mohammed Yasin, who was
reportedly killed in an Israeli strike in 2010. Aref's attorney, Kathy
Manley, addressed a rally outside the Federal Courthouse in Binghamton.

Kathy Manley: "He did witness a loan. And the idea was that the loan was
supposed to be money laundering from the sale of a missile. But he was
never really told about that. He was never shown the missile. They said
that would spook him, because if he knew there was anything like that
going on, he would have wanted nothing to do with it. And he even said
that he had no interest in supporting terrorism."

New York activist Lynne Jackson delivered the petitions for Aref's
release after walking 133 miles in a "Journey for Justice" from Albany
to Binghamton.

 

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