DAR AL HARB - AUSTRALIA: HILALI GIVES $$$$ TO JIHAD RADIO

How mufti gave charity to jihad radio
by Richard Kerbaj

WEEKS after the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon last year, Australia's mufti Taj Din al-Hilali was being chauffeured around the troubled Middle East nation in a black Mercedes Benz.
He was handing out $US38,000 ($46,000) in charity donations raised by Australian Muslims for the war victims.

The mission has landed the strife-prone mufti in more trouble after doubts emerged over who received the charity given by sympathetic donors in Australia.

The driver of the Mercedes, al-Qa'ida and Hezbollah supporter Bilal Shaaban, need not have been concerned about devoting his Saturday to the steering wheel, because Hilali would later allocate $US10,000 to his Islamic radio station.

Sitting quietly in the back with a black Samsonite briefcase full of US dollar bills was Yiyha Safi, representing the Sydney-based Lebanese Muslim Association.

Safi had specific instructions from the organisation's secretary, Khaled Alameddine, to let Hilali take the lead in distributing the cash.
The LMA would later get a fright, finding the only evidence of the disbursements was written on Rydges Hotel notepaper.

Safi had kept the notepaper in his briefcase after an imams' meeting in Sydney years earlier, held at the Rydges Hotel.

Shaaban drove Hilali and Safi to a mosque in Sidon where they met the imam, Maher Hamoud. Hilali gave him $US2000 after a brief lunch.

Security dictated that the three men would be taken that afternoon by a different car to the Shabaa region, a village in southern Lebanon badly hit in the war.

Hilali visited many of the destroyed Sunni Muslim houses there, giving cash handouts averaging $400 to 24 homes.

The 66-year-old cleric wrote the name of each recipient on the notepaper as he made each gift. The fact he has not supplied the LMA with official receipts has led to allegations that the money ended up in the wrong hands.

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Pertinent Links:

1) How mufti gave charity to jihad radio