By Elizabeth Baier
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Many in the local Somali community knew Amina Farah Ali and Hawo Mohamed Hassan as women who collected money and clothing to send to refugees in their homeland. Some also knew the FBI had searched their homes last year as part of a larger probe.
Still, the arrests came as a surprise to many.
The government accuses the women of funneling more than $8,600 to al-Shabaab, a radical Islamic group with ties to al-Qaida, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. A Winona police officer aided the FBI in the investigation that led to their arrests.
Some Somalis in Rochester are afraid they might be similarly accused, said Abdifatah Abdinur, executive director of New Faces of America, a non-profit organization in Rochester geared toward helping immigrants. But Abdinur also said many feel strongly that anyone helping al-Shabaab should be prosecuted.
"People understand the importance of the system working for everyone in this country," he said. "They're glad anybody who's doing any harm to the Somali community, here or back home, or anybody who is affiliated with any terrorist network, should face the system and have their day in court."
Abdinur said Ali was known in the community as the go-to person if local Somalis had clothes or other goods to donate. She and Hassan are the only women charged in a case that now has 21 defendants from at least three different states.
"We are seeing an increasing number of individuals, including U.S. citizens, who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad," Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.
Ali and Hassan are both naturalized U.S. citizens. They say they are innocent.
"I told you already, we are Muslim people. We're not terrorism," said Hassan, who also is a day-care provider in Rochester. " We're not guilty people. We're innocent people."
Federal judge Jeffrey Keyes released Hassan and Ali after prosecutors said they did not object to the arrangement.
Up until last summer, Ali lived at the Villages of Essex Park, a sprawling apartment complex in Northwest Rochester with many Somali residents. Several expressed shock and distress at the news of the arrests.
Sahra Hussein, 33, lives in the complex with her four children. She said she had never met or donated money to either Ali or Hassan. But Hussein had heard about the FBI probe last year.
"It saddens me at some point, to have someone accuse my race or my culture, or anybody for that matter," she said.
Hussein said the arrests further weaken legitimate efforts to help needy Somalis, as well an already strained image of Somali and Somali-Americans living in the United States.
"It doesn't do any good for anybody helping terrorism organizations when they're supposed to be helping people in need," she said. "It might make things hard for anybody that was going to do a good cause or to help somebody. Basically, it's just sad."
Winona Daily News reporter Nolan Rosenkrans contributed to this report.