From The Archive(s): How Hakeem Olajuwon's Mosque's Money Was Funneled To Terrorists - Says He Was in Dark Over Terror Funding

Houston basketball legend Hakeem Olajuwon's mosque donated tens of thousands of dollars to Islamic organizations that the Treasury Department said later funneled money to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists.

The former Houston Rockets star and his accountant said Wednesday that the donations were given with no knowledge of any alleged links to terrorism. Federal officials said they are not investigating the former star.

"I made donations in good faith. I had no idea. I wouldn't have done it if I had known they were not good people. I wouldn't have contributed," Olajuwon said in a statement.

Tax records of the Islamic Da'Wah Center, which Olajuwon founded to "help Islamic persons in distress," show donations in 2000 and 2002 to two groups that have had their assets frozen and been charged with funding Islamic terrorism.

Most of the money went to the Islamic African Relief Agency's U.S. affiliate, which was "providing direct financial support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist groups," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in October, when that group had its assets frozen.

'Witting and unwitting' gifts

Olajuwon's foundation also donated to the Holy Land Foundation , of Richardson, which the government shut down on charges of being a terrorist front soon after Sept. 11, 2001.

Olajuwon, who is in Jordan studying Arabic, could not be reached by the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. The Associated Press, which first reported the donations, quoted him as saying: "There is no way you can go back in time."

His personal assistant, Pam Greaney, said Olajuwon is now more careful.

"For future contributions, we are making sure we have all of the backup paperwork and that all of the organizations and any of the contributions are to groups that have been approved by the State Department," she said.

Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise would not comment on Olajuwon. She said officials "have seen both witting and unwitting contributions to these organizations."

An accountant working for Olajuwon in Houston, Vipul Worah, said there was no way to have known about the groups. "If you donated to the Red Cross or the United Way, and those groups later did something tainted, how would you know that?" he said.

Terrorism experts said it would have been easy to mistakenly donate to groups later charged with facilitating terrorism, especially before Sept. 11, 2001.

"Tracking the money trail of these organizations is a new phenomenon that really began after 9/11," said terrorism expertBrian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation.

Olajuwon's foundation donated to many other groups that have not been accused of terrorist links. Tax records show the organization gave more than $2 million to Islamic charities between 2000 and 2002 with less than $84,000 — about 4 percent — going to groups now suspected of terrorist affiliations.

"He hardly can be identified as the Daddy Warbucks of international terrorism based on that," said Jenkins.

The tax-exempt foundation that made the donations was set up by Olajuwon in the mid-1990s. He served as the group's vice president, records show, and later established Houston's first downtown mosque in November 2002, which Worah said was part of what is now the Islamic Da'Wah Center.

Olajuwon defended

Syed Osman Ali , manager of the Da'Wah Center, said Olajuwon "wouldn't dare get involved" with an organization linked to terrorism.

Giving to charity is the third of Islam's five pillars, or basic tenets, said Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi, a religious leader of theIslamic Society of Greater Houston's southeast-zone mosque. Muslims are required to give 2.5 percent of their savings to the poor each year.

Records for Olajuwon's tax-exempt foundation show he gave the IARA in the United States $61,250 in 2000 and $20,000 more in 2002.

Olajuwon's foundation also gave $2,430 to the Holy Land Foundation in 2000. The federal government shut down that foundation in 2001. At that time, the Justice Department said it was the main American fund-raiser for Hamas and had sent $12.4 million to the Palestinian organization since 1995.

Freeze called a mistake

An attorney for the IARA in the United States said the government's decision to freeze its assets was a mistake and that no one who donated to his client should be apologetic.

"All the money donated to the IARA in America went to legitimate charitable purposes, and the government hasn't claimed otherwise," said John Zwerling, a Virginia-based lawyer for the group.

Zwerling said the IARA in the United States, which changed its name to the Islamic American Relief Agency in 2002, did not have a direct fund-raising relationship with the IARA based in Khartoum, Sudan, and that money raised in the United States was not mingled with that raised by the African group. He has filed a civil suit against the federal government seeking to have the U.S. group's assets unfrozen.

The Treasury Department said the U.S. group was a direct channel to a Khartoum organization, which in turn was knowingly supporting bin Laden's terrorists. The group's move to change its name after Sept. 11 was cosmetic, Treasury Department lawyers said.

Houston Chronicle reporters Fran Blinebury, Robert Crowe and Tara Dooley contributed to this report.