Indictment says ex-congressman aided Islamic group

Siljander, who represented a Michigan district in the 1980s, is charged with money-laundering and conspiracy. Authorities say he worked for an organization that has been linked to an Afghan warlord.

WASHINGTON -- A former three-term member of Congress from Michigan was indicted today in connection with his work for a U.S.-based Islamic relief organization that allegedly supported a prominent Afghan warlord.

Mark Deli Siljander, 57, a Washington lobbyist who served in the House between 1981 and 1987, was charged with money-laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in a multi-count indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo.

Federal officials said Siljander was hired in 2004 by the Islamic American Relief Agency, of Columbia, Mo., after the group had been included on a list of organizations banned from receiving government contracts because of concerns that it supported international terrorism.

Siljander was paid $50,000 to lobby Congress to restore the firm's eligibility to receive government work. According to the indictment, the money was stolen by the Islamic American Relief Agency from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had hired the organization to do relief work in Africa.

Siljander was charged with conspiring to engage in money-laundering by transferring stolen USAID funds, and obstructing justice by lying to a federal grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents, officials said.

Indictment says ex-congressman aided Islamic group 34775598nr7

Indictment says ex-congressman aided Islamic group 34775598nr7

According to the indictment, Siljander told federal officials that he had not been hired to do any lobbying or advocacy work for IARA, and that the funds he received were charitable donations intended to assist him in writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity.

The 42-count indictment targets the IARA and several of its former officers.

The group was shuttered in October 2004 when it was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department. Among those charged in the latest indictment was Mubarak Hamed, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sudan, who was the group's former executive director.

The IARA was charged in a previous indictment last March with transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal law.

The new indictment alleges that the group funneled $130,000 to bank accounts in Pakistan "purportedly for an orphanage" that was housed in buildings controlled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Hekmatyar is founder of the Hezb-i-Islami, a militia that is allied with the Taliban. The U.S. government put Hekmatyar on a list of global terrorists in 2003, thereby banning any U.S. support for him or his interests.

Siljander, one of the most conservative members of Congress, lost a bid for reelection in 1986 in which he exhorted local clergy to help "break the back of Satan" by supporting him.

His Great Falls, Va., lobbying firm, Global Strategies Inc., has operated for more than 20 years, according to its website, which lists references including the first President Bush and assassinated former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

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Indictment says ex-congressman aided Islamic group

Indictment says ex-congressman aided Islamic group

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