Johannesburg – The US Treasury has sanctioned four people it alleges funded Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) and Isis-Mozambique (Isis-M) facilitators based in South Africa. The funds were generated through recruitment, robberies, kidnapping, and extortion.
The United States’ Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated Farhad Hoomer, Siraaj Miller, Abdella Hussein Abadigga, and Peter Charles Mbaga.
Individuals who are designated by the US Department of Treasury have their assets blocked, and US persons are prohibited from dealing with them.
Hoomer claims to know who Miller is, “because of a masjid that he built and the other guys we don’t know who they are.” He was arrested in 2018 by South African authorities for his alleged involvement in a plan to deploy improvised incendiary devices near a mosque and commercial and retail buildings. It is also alleged his home was being used as an Isis training facility. However, the government could not “prove one of” the charges, said Hoomer in an interview with Salaamedia.
“We went to trial in 2018 and it’s been almost four years that they have been investigating me and they charged me with, I think, 26 charges were put on me and they couldn’t prove one of it. In our affidavit, which is there on record, we clearly said that I was buying property for investing at the time and the properties were all rented out. As a landlord, you cannot go and search all your properties, see who is doing what in those properties. We gave our affidavit, we gave the lease, that who were renting the properties, we gave them the records of people who were in the properties.”
Hoomer’s legal team is in the process of investigating these claims and “want to sue the United States for incorrect information and basically bad mouthing” him.
“They [United States] need to come with proof now. I spoke to our legal team. We need to see how we are going to take them on, where we are going to force them to prove what they said and if they fail to prove what they said, we are going to sue the United States… They have really really damaged my business in every way now… Even locally, the news came out on Monday night and today is Thursday and I have gotten over a hundred messages from people not wanting to do business with me anymore thinking that this is true.”
Yusuf Cassim, Farhad Hoomer’s lawyer, claims all the charges and sanctions against his client are based on allegations. He said the court case against his client didn’t get far enough to see what evidence the state had and if they had “evidence the matter would have proceeded.”
“It’s all allegations coming from the SA side. Obviously, they sent their US counterparts information which they knew hadn’t been tested or proven in court and the US, who obviously are a law unto themselves, have taken this draconian measure to just simply apply these sanctions.”
Cassim was not too worried about the financial sanctions but was more concerned about the travel ban that was put on his client.
“Obviously, the financial sanctions are one thing. We don’t really have any assets or investments in the US but how it will or has been affecting him is the travel ban. The fact that he can’t travel to most countries because he is red listed, seen as a threat to a lot of countries and that is something we ultimately will be challenging because if a person hasn’t been found guilty of any offence, how then, what justifies him being red listed like that?”
According to Cassim, they have an ongoing lawsuit against the state seeking damages for those who were accused of being involved in the Verulam Mosque attack. They are also pursuing other applications regarding the return of Hoomer’s assets and his travel ban.
“After the [criminal] matter was struck off, since inception, they had taken possession of a lot of our assets including electronic devices and they’ve been refusing to hand that over and we brought an application to the high court and that is pending. Also, regarding this travel ban specifically, we definitely will be taking the South African government to task. They need to explain how the listing even happened, on what basis and also compelling them to remove those listings… These measures are clearly unlawful, and we will be taking it up.”
OFAC alleges Miller, who is from Mitchells Plain, “provided financial assistance to Isis by training members to conduct robberies to raise funds for Isis. In 2018, Miller also aided in acquiring temporary safe houses for Isis.”
Ethiopian, Abdella Hussein Abadigga, whose address is listed in Johannesburg, is accused by OFAC of controlling, “two mosques in South Africa, used his position to extort money from members of the mosques,” as well as sending “these funds via a hawala to Isis supporters elsewhere in Africa. Bilal al-Sudani, a US-designated Isis leader in Somalia, considered Abadigga a trusted supporter who could help the Isis supporters in South Africa become better organised and recruit new members.”
Peter Charles Mbaga, a Tanzanian living in Johannesburg, is alleged to have “sought to provide support to Isis-M by helping the group procure equipment from South Africa. Mbaga also sought to procure weapons from Mozambique.”
Cassim noted this incident impacts the Muslim community should the US go unchallenged in this matter, “what is stopping them from taking other unlawful steps or measures against other Muslim citizens,” and persecuting those they deem a threat on any basis.
