JEDDAH: The International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) has asked its lawyer in Washington Martin McMahon to ask the UN Security Council to remove its name from the list of organizations supporting terrorism, said IIRO Secretary-General Adnan Khalil Basha.
“Earlier we could not directly contact the UN Security Council since contact had to go through a member state,” he said. “But now as the procedures have been changed, we asked our lawyer to clear our name from the council’s list.”
Basha said that for more than eight years the case in the American courts against IIRO and against 400 persons, banks and organizations charged of supporting terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 has been dragging on.
“The allegations against IIRO were based on 450 pages of press clippings and reports compiled by newspapers and a few agencies claiming that IIRO supported terrorist activities, which is totally unfounded,” he said. “We have lawyers in the Philippines, Switzerland and Great Britain who defend the organization.”
The secretary-general denied any involvement by the IIRO in any terrorist activities and said that the organization is present in 32 countries where it provides relief to the victims of natural disasters and the needy and implements humanitarian, health and educational projects. The secretary general further said the false accusations against IIRO have affected its humanitarian work. Basha said the case was filed in New York and was later consolidated in line with the 9/11 cases.
Basha said that the judge who was assigned the case and who had gone through all the papers was replaced by a second judge and later by a third judge who asked the lawyers of the two parties to get together and formulate a final list of queries so that he could issue a decision.
“I am confident of the innocence of the organization. Despite eight years before the courts not a single incriminating piece of evidence was presented against the IIRO except a heap of press clippings that proves nothing,” he said.
Basha said the accusation directed against the offices of the organization in the Philippines and Indonesia was based on secret evidence presented by the US Department of Treasury.
The IIRO’s lawyer was not allowed to examine those allegations. On the basis of this evidence, the judge issued the list of charges that the Security Council blindly stamped.
The secretary-general explained that the organization’s office in the Philippines was accused of supporting terrorism though it had been closed years before the allegations were made.
