– NORWEGIAN PLEADED NOT GUILTY OF FINANCING TERROR

A Somali – born Norwegian citizen pleaded not guilty Tuesday 09/07/2010, to charges of sending over $30,000 to top leaders of an Al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group at the start of the first trial under Norway’s 2002 terror financing law.

Norwegian prosecutors formally indicted the 40-year-old man, identified by some sources as Osman Abdirahman Abdi,  in Oslo District Court late last year on charges of collecting at least 200,000 kroner ($33,000) in Norway and Sweden between late 2007 and early 2008 and sending it to al-Shabab militants “in order to support terrorist activities.” He cannot be named due to Norway’s privacy laws.

Prosecutors said the charges included sending $500 to Faud Mohammed Qalaf in 08/2007 and $10,000 to Aden Hashi Farah, known as “Eyrow”, in 01/2008. The two were senior commanders in al-Shabab at the time. Eyrow was killed in a USA airstrike later in 2008.

Prosecutors said that during the period of the indictment the defendant was in regular telephone contact with Faud Mohammed Qalaf, who lived in Sweden prior to taking up arms in Somalia.

Osman Abdirahman Abdi was the only one of three Somali men arrested in Oslo on 02/28/2008, on suspicion of terror financing to be brought to trial. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. At the same time, Swedish police arrested three other men suspected of the same crime in Stockholm, but prosecutors there never charged them (see also – Munir Awad ).

 

 

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