A U.S. citizen has been charged with raising nearly half a million dollars for Hamas by using online platforms that claimed to be collecting money for humanitarian aid in Gaza, the authorities said on Wednesday.
Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi, 38, was arrested in San Diego on Tuesday and appeared before a federal magistrate judge who ordered him held without bail pending future proceedings, deeming him a flight risk.
The charges against Mr. Sabassi include conspiracy to provide money to a terrorist organization, wire fraud and money laundering, among others. Mr. Sabassi is expected to be sent to New York to face trial. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up 20 years in prison on most of the counts.
The money raised by Mr. Sabassi was used not only “to help finance that group’s terror and violence” but also “to line his own pockets,” John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
According to a federal complaint filed by the Southern District of New York, Mr. Sabassi used social media accounts, crowd-funding websites and a charity called Ikram to solicit donations from around the world and in the United States, including New York. Prosecutors said that the charity promised to provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, including food, medicine, tents and clothes. Instead, the prosecutors said, Mr. Sabassi was actually raising funds for Hamas.
Prosecutors accused Mr. Sabassi of raising about $600,000 online and sending about $116,000 of that money to a Hamas member and attempting to convert more than $380,000 of the cash into cryptocurrency to send to Hamas through a Gaza-based organization called Gaza Now. Prosecutors said that Gaza Now used its online accounts “to promote Hamas’s terrorist agenda and solicit funds for Hamas.”
In addition, thousands of dollars from the fund-raisers were diverted to Mr. Sabassi’s personal accounts to pay for expenses such as rent and credit card payments, according to the complaint.
Prosecutors said that in an interview with investigators, Mr. Sabassi acknowledged that he had created and posted online a one-hour video of Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Mr. Sabassi told the investigators that he made the video to show that the Hamas fighters were attacking military targets that day, “not beheading or raping babies,” the complaint said.
Mr. Sabassi also told investigators that Hamas was fighting a “bigger, more evil enemy,” according to the complaint, and that he believed Hamas could help the citizens of Gaza. During the same interview, Mr. Sabassi said that he would not support Hamas with weapons or money because it was illegal.
The complaint also said that Mr. Sabassi lied during the interview and had been charged with making false statements.
Theo Torres and Patricia Keizer, Mr. Sabassi’s lawyers, did not immediately respond to questions.
Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, said in a statement that Mr. Sabassi’s arrest demonstrated the government’s commitment “to prosecute those who provide financial support to a malign terrorist regime that hates America.”
Seamus Hughes contributed reporting.
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