Dozens of supporters have filled the oldest Miami mosque to pray for a Muslim cleric accused by US authorities of collecting and sending funds to radical Taliban activists based in Pakistan.
The elderly imam, 76-year-old Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, pleaded not guilty in US federal court on Monday to charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban and was ordered held without bail.
The US government accuses him, four of his relatives and another person of funneling money and providing support to the group branded by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization.
Khan is the leader of Miami’s oldest mosque.
Samad Nassirnia, an Iranian-born math teacher, one of the regulars at the mosque who came to pray on Friday, said she knew the imam well and refused to believe the charges.
“Sheik Khan has nothing to do with politics,” Nassirnia told AFP. “He is not a political person at all. He is a spiritual leader.”
She said Khan operated since the 1970s a school in Pakistan, which is attended by 200 girls, 34 boys, and lots of children orphaned as a result of the war in Afghanistan.
“So he has been sending them money, legal money,” Nassirnia insisted. “It is legal to send money overseas … This situation is very, very bad. Our community has lost this great person and our spiritual leader.
“They said he sent 50,000 dollars in three years,” the woman added. “It is not too much money. If you think just about teachers’ salaries and the need to feed the children for three years, this is very, very little money.”
The Pakistani Taliban, which is engaged in a violent resistance against the Pakistani and US governments, operates a network of religious schools in the country. It also has links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
One of Khan’s sons, 24-year-old Izhar Khan, also appeared in court for the first time since their indictment was unsealed. He is also an imam at a Florida mosque.
The six defendants are all Pakistanis, although some of them have US citizenship.
The indictment unveiled last week names the older Khan, two sons (Irfan and Izhar Khan), daughter Amina Khan, grandson Alam Zeb and another individual, Ali Rehman.
The arrests and charges against the Pakistanis come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Islamabad following a US commando raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout deep in Pakistan.
But a substitute preacher who came to conduct the Friday service alleged the charges were false.
“Today we pray for our sheik and for all those who, having not committed any crime, are in jail,” he told the faithful. “We pray for his prompt release.”
Mahmud, a Jordanian vendor, who sells women’s clothes from a stall outside the mosque, compared the situation of Khan to that of US civil rights leaders in the 1960s.
“Time ago, in United States, black people were discriminated against,” he said “Now the Muslims are. People are afraid when they come here, everybody feels persecuted.”
He insisted the Koran, the Muslim holy book was not just for the Muslims, but for all people.
“If you could read the Koran in your language and understand it, you would cry for what you would feel,” Mahmud added.
