Critics of mosque plan seek review
They question ties of society founder
Critics of the Islamic Society of Boston's efforts to build a mosque on land purchased from the Boston Redevelopment Authority asked the City Council yesterday to review the deal, citing new information linking a fund-raiser for the Al Qaeda network to the society.
Jeffrey Robbins, the lawyer representing a research group and a Boston College associate professor who oppose the project, asked Councilor Jerry P. McDermott to order hearings based on a US Treasury Department document issued in July that indicates that a man who helped found the society in 1982 raised about $1 million for two groups associated with Al Qaeda.
In the statement issued July 14, the Treasury Department stated that Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was sentenced to federal prison in 2004 for involvement in a plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, had raised the money in the United States for the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, which provides material support for Al Qaeda, as well as Saal Al Faqih, a group that controls the Movement.
''According to information available to the US Government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to Al Qaeda, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with Al Qaeda and had raised money for Al Qaeda in the United States," according to the Treasury Department statement, which informed financial institutions worldwide of the connections between the two groups and Al Qaeda.
In addition, Robbins stated that the current head of the real estate trust that holds the Roxbury land where the mosque will be built supported a petition calling for the release of Alamoudi from prison while his trial was pending in 2003. Osama Kandil of Herndon, Va., who is listed as chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston Trust, attached his name to an online petition asking federal authorities to release Alamoudi on bail before the trial took place.
Kandil, a former Boston resident who now resides in Virginia, could not be reached for comment, having left for a trip to Egypt earlier this week, according to Howard M. Cooper, a lawyer for the Islamic Society of Boston.
He called Robbins's attempt to tie the Islamic Society to Alamoudi outrageous, saying, ''This man [Alamoudi] has had absolutely no connection with the Islamic Society for 15 or 20 years, yet they try to tie the two together."
Cooper has sued Robbins's clients -- the David Project and Dennis Hale, among others -- for libel, defamation of character, and conspiracy on the grounds that they have tried to stop the development of the mosque by raising false allegations against the Islamic Society.
Stephen Kurkjian can be reached via kurkjian@globe.com. 