A Yemeni cleric, who claims to be Osama bin Laden's spiritual adviser, has said he personally delivered $20 million, including some donations raised at the Al Farouq mosque in New York, to the Al Qaeda leader in the years before the September 11 attacks, according to a report.
"Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan Moayad, 54, was arrested in Frankfurt on January 10 and charged with providing material support to a terrorist network after a year-long FBI sting operation," US Attorney General John Ashcroft told a congressional panel.
Moayad's 29-year-old assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, was also arrested, according to federal court documents unsealed on Wednesday.
Moayad, an official with the Islah political party in Sanna, Yemen's capital, 'boasted jihad was his field and trumpeted his involvement in providing money, recruits and supplies to Al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist groups', The Washington Post quoted Ashcroft as saying.
The Al Farouq mosque, located in Brooklyn, was once a gathering place for Egyptian cleric Sheikh Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheikh, and other men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
Moayad and his assistant were arrested after the FBI informants lured them to an airport hotel in Frankfurt with the prospect of a $2 million donation to buy weapons and communications equipment and fund training for mujahideen fighters, according to the federal complaint.
In meetings with the FBI informants, Moayad identified five individuals in New York who had sent him money, according to the complaint.
One informant also attended a mass wedding hosted by Moayad last September in Yemen at which a top Hamas official said that revellers would read about an 'operation' in the newspapers the next day.
The same day a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Tel Aviv, killing five people and injuring 50.
Ashcroft lauded the case as an example of how a blend of law enforcement and intelligence cooperation can produce successes in the war on terrorism.
He also referred to the arrest over the weekend of top Al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan, calling it a severe blow to the Al Qaeda that could destabilise their terrorist network worldwide'.