Hezbollah (38 page)

Mohamad Hammoud, two of his brothers, and twenty-two others were indicted in 2000 in US District Court in the Western District of North Carolina on various criminal charges. Most pleaded guilty, but Hammoud and his brother Chawki stood trial and were ultimately convicted in June 2002 of providing material support to Hezbollah, racketeering, fraud, and other charges.
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In the authorities’ successful prosecution of the Charlotte Hezbollah network, one witness stood out. Said Harb, as one agent described him, was “a one-man crime wave.”
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Neither religious nor a blood relative as many of the others were, Harb was at the center of nearly all the network’s criminal enterprises, from credit card and bank fraud to cigarette smuggling to dual-use procurement efforts. Given his profile, the amount of jail time he
faced, and the evidence US and Canadian authorities had compiled, investigators were keen to “flip” Harb—that is, offer him a reduced sentence in return for testifying against the rest of the network.

Harb, however, did not see himself as a major player. He was surprised when so many agents participated in his arrest in 2000. “Why a SWAT team?” he asked. “It’s not like I’m a terrorist or anything.” Rick Schwein, a supervisory FBI agent on the scene, replied, “Well, we’re going to talk about that.”
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As it turned out, Harb was the critical link between the Charlotte cigarette smuggling ring and a Canadian dual-use procurement ring. One of the major players in the Canadian Hezbollah network was a childhood friend of Harb’s, and Harb provided him with false IDs that the Hezbollah operatives in Canada used to replicate Harb’s credit card bust-out scams. An expert in using multiple identities, Harb had four different ring tones on his cell phone, each for a different identity.
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As prosecutor Kenneth Bell put it, this was all about tradecraft. “If you are Hezbollah it is convenient to have more than one name. It is convenient to have financial resources in more than one name.”
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Harb taught Mohamad Hammoud and others the trade. Angela Tsioumas, Hammoud’s wife, testified that Mohamad had accounts in Michigan and Charlotte under the name of Ali Abouselah and they would regularly transfer money between these accounts and an account in their own names.
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The real Abouselah was a friend of Mohamad’s, a Saudi student at the University of North Carolina. When he returned to Saudi Arabia, Mohamad assumed his identity, including bank accounts in Abouselah’s name, credit cards, a driver’s license, and a post office box and accounts at the JR Tobacco outlet as well.
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Hammoud apparently provided some of these credit cards to others so that they too could charge purchases at the JR outlet on his cards. And he was aware this exposed him to potential law enforcement scrutiny. In one conversation about a card Hammoud provided to someone else, Hammoud suddenly reminded the person at the other end of the line to be careful about what he says “because the line is being monitored by police.” The other person continued talking until Hammoud cut off the speaker again. “I am telling [you] over this telephone that I don’t know what [you] … mean by this … because the line is being monitored…. I have a big problem here.”
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Where Harb could make a buck, he would. He was involved in an internet pornography business that, he conceded, was “religiously … wrong,” adding, “I’m not a religious person.”
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Some of the drivers who transported cigarettes to Michigan for Harb complained that he ripped them off. As one driver put it, “I mean, what was I going to do, go to the local police?”
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When a female driver threatened to quit, Harb retorted that he would go to the restaurant where she worked and “kick everybody’s ass” and blow it up.
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Alongside the funds Hammoud raised through criminal enterprises, he collected donations for Hezbollah at weekly Thursday evening prayer meetings he hosted in
his home, according to several local Shi’a men who attended.
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The men would pray, talk politics, watch Hezbollah videos, and donate money to the cause. Several of the videos included footage of actual Hezbollah suicide bombing attacks targeting Israeli checkpoints in southern Lebanon.
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On one video, a “martyr squad,” posing for the camera strapped with explosives, vows to “detonate ourselves to cause the earth to shake under the feet of our enemy, America and Israel.”
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One tape seized at Hammoud’s home contained footage of a Hezbollah parade. Following a Hezbollah anthem (“the hand of God gave us the weapons … surely, Hezbollah are the victorious … Israel will get its reprisal”), scout groups—like the one Hammoud himself belonged to as a youth—stomp on American and Israeli flags painted on the ground. “How little you are, America; how worthless you are, Israel,” the speaker intones. “Our heroes are stepping on the both of you as the Mujahedeen stomp with their feet on the American and Zionist terrorism.” Speakers next in line included the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon and the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both just opening acts for the main attraction, Hassan Nasrallah, who quickly gets to his central point: “I scream loudly [at] our forever enemies, the Big Devil, the United States of America, and its cancerous gland, Israel.” His speech is interrupted by chants from the crowd focused not on Israel but on a more fundamental theme: “Death to America! Death to America! Death to America!”
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After his arrest, Hammoud told FBI special agent Andre Khoury the videotapes brought “joy to his heart because the Resistance forces [were] trying to liberate Lebanon.”
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Hammoud, one law enforcement official commented, was a “Dr. Jekyll–Mr. Hyde type,” who shed his soft-spoken demeanor and came alive at the weekly meetings he hosted.
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A theme that emerges in another tape is that of “economic jihad” ( jihad
bin mal
): If one cannot fight as a martyr in the south of Lebanon, viewers are told, “you can fight by giving your money.”
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The theme is echoed in a letter Hammoud received from a Hezbollah supporter and convert to Islam, Abu Adam.
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Then in Lebanon, Abu Adam once belonged to the Shi’a community in Charlotte and participated in Hammoud’s Thursday night meetings. In the letter, Abu Adam reminds Hammoud of the need for supporters to raise funds for Hezbollah, but to do so with “complete secrecy.” He then asks for the continued raising of funds at the meetings, to be delivered by local Lebanese visiting Lebanon. Abu Adam then notes that he has sent materials with another member of the Charlotte network that cover “the accomplishments of the Resistance” so that “the guys [at Hammoud’s meetings] could see it and donate to the Resistance.” Not to worry, he adds, “I will send you a receipt for any amount donated.”
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What really charged the group, however, was propaganda targeting not only Israel but also the United States. In one video, produced by Mohamad Dbouk, a speaker harks back to the 1983 Hezbollah attack on the marine barracks in Lebanon and acknowledges that Hezbollah continues to look for suitable American targets in Lebanon and, if none are found there, then others abroad: “As I’ve said many times before, we don’t fear America or Israel, but rather fear our internal domain. The same spirit with which the martyr brother entered the Marines headquarters and rubbed the Americans’ nose in the dirt, this spirit still exists.”
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Hammoud and other members of his network maintained contact with senior Hezbollah officials even once they left Lebanon for the United States. Their principal contact was Sheikh Abbas Harake, a Hezbollah military commander in southern Beirut. When FBI special agent Khoury interviewed Hammoud after his arrest, Hammoud admitted to knowing Abbas Harake and identified him as a sheikh who provided lectures, speeches, and other forms of support for Hezbollah. But he denied ever speaking to Harake while living in the United States.
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Unfortunately for Mr. Hammoud, the prosecution was armed with the transcripts of those supposedly nonexistent calls. “Unbeknownst to Mr. Hammoud,” Prosecutor Kenneth Bell noted, “the American intelligence community had a wiretap up on Mr. Hammoud’s house in the first part of 2000. And we have Mohamad Hammoud talking on the phone with Sheikh Harake.”
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Then there are the letters. The FBI seized and translated at least two letters from Harake to Hammoud, which show the two maintained a close relationship, had worked together in Lebanon in the past, and continued to work together once Hammoud went to America. “When the letter is far away and the love is eternal and relationship is strong, it is impossible for words to summarize or depict an accurate picture of the amount of love that I have for you,” Harake wrote to Hammoud.
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At trial, prosecutors asked Hammoud about his work with Harake. Kenneth Bell recalled that exchange for the jury in his closing remarks: “Did he ever squirm around on any question more than that? At the end of lots of squirming and wandering [Hammoud’s only reply was], ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about.’”
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Later in his letter, Harake indicated that Hammoud was still involved in work for Hezbollah.
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In turn Bell asked the jury to consider, “What sort of work do you do as a military commander in Beirut for Hezbollah?”
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In another letter, Harake provides Hammoud with a detailed report on the situation facing Hezbollah in Lebanon, including sections on the status of military, political, educational, and organizational affairs. Later in the letter Harake sends regards to “all the guys,” and assures Hammoud that while he cannot write about certain details owing to their sensitivity, “know that we are alright and stronger than we were, holding on to our weapons to protect the dignity of our nation.” Harake makes clear that he sees America as no less an enemy than Israel. After praising Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, and singing the praises of Hezbollah martyrs like Abbas Mousawi, Harake takes aim at his enemies. “As I greeted the virtuous ones, I must damn the evil ones. Damn America the criminal, and the arrogant Israel that commits injustice and hostility; and Allah, you are the everlasting over the enemies of Islam.”
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His closeness to the Hezbollah military commander Abbas Harake aside, Hammoud also kept in contact with Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. By this time, Fadlallah was no longer formally affiliated with Hezbollah, and by some accounts he was no longer the group’s spiritual adviser, either. Yet he still ran charities that funneled money to Hezbollah, some of which were designated as Hezbollah charities by the US government. For example, Fadlallah’s al-Mabarrat Charity Association maintained
intimate ties with Hezbollah at least until Fadlallah’s death in July 2010, and its Dearborn, Michigan, office was raided by the FBI in July 2007.
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Hammoud received receipts from Hezbollah for at least some of his donations, including receipts from Fadlallah’s office.
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Hammoud’s personal ties to Fadlallah went back to Beirut, where Hammoud attended Fadlallah’s mosque. Hammoud told FBI special agent Khoury that he had several telephone contacts with Fadlallah since moving to the United States. “Unless you have direct knowledge or direct contact with [Fadlallah] in Lebanon, you will not be able to contact him while you’re outside,” explained Khoury, who grew up in Lebanon.
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In another sign of Hammoud’s ties to powerful Hezbollah elements in Lebanon, he threatened to “have somebody take care of” the family back in Lebanon of anyone who testified he was tied to Hezbollah. The threats came from his jail cell in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, after he and others involved in the conspiracy were arrested in July 2000.
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The threats resonated; perhaps some of those threatened were aware that Hammoud had Abbas Harake rough up Hammoud’s own nephew back in Lebanon at one point over the nephew’s “bad” behavior.
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Hezbollah demonstrated a deep interest in Hammoud’s case, underscoring the extent of his ties to the group. When one member of the network returned to Lebanon after serving his eighteen-month sentence, Hezbollah detained him for two weeks. They “especially want[ed] to know [the details of] this case” and who was working with the American government, Samir Debk testified.
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When FBI agents raided Mohamad Hammoud’s home on July 21, 2000, he pulled a handgun but then wisely thought the better of the decision and put it down. Authorities seized the handgun, as well as photographs of Hammoud and others holding automatic weapons at what appears to be an outdoor target-practice session.
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According to the FBI, although he was primarily a Hezbollah fundraiser, Hammoud may well have been willing to use these or other weapons for an attack in the United States if asked to do so. According to a US government affidavit, a confidential FBI source reported that “if Hezbollah issued an authorization to execute a terrorist act in the United States, Mohamad Hammoud would not hesitate to carry it out.”
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On January 12, 2001, Andy Walcott, an inmate with Mohamad Hammoud at Mecklenburg county jail, contacted the Charlotte FBI. He claimed Hammoud told him he planned to escape from jail, have assistant US attorney Ken Bell killed, and bomb the US attorney’s office in Charlotte in order to destroy the evidence against him. Moreover, he said that Hammoud had asked for a fake birth certificate and Social Security card, and claimed that a female guard was being bribed to pass notes among Hammoud and his co-conspirators. While the FBI questioned Walcott’s credibility—he had numerous prior convictions, was facing deportation to his native Trinidad, and failed his polygraph test—they deemed the allegations too serious to ignore.
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