Iraqi-American man jailed for sending money to family in Iraq decade ago
After the Gulf War, sanctions prohibited Americans from sending money to Iraq. Iraqi-American Shakir Hamoodi broke those rules, however, when he found out his family in Iraq had miscarried, because they couldn't afford $10 antibiotics. Now he's in jail — almost 20 years after the fact.
During the first Gulf War, which started in 1990, President George H.W. Bush appeared on TV and said that the United States had no beef with the people of Iraq.
But at the time, Iraq was under U.N. sanctions.
Meanwhile in Columbia, Mo., Lamya Najem and her husband, Shakir Hamoodi, had migrated to the U.S. They heard Bush on TV — and thought they understood what he said. Today, Najem looks back, resigned.
“I (would) never imagine that helping others is breaking the law," she said.
In 1990, U.S. sanctions prohibited money transfers to Iraq. Earlier this year, Najem’s husband, Hamoodi, began serving three years in prison for violating those rules by sending money to his relatives in Iraq — and helping other Iraqis in Missouri do the same. Over nine years, the transfers added up to nearly $300,000.
Najem said the idea came in 1992, when her brother-in-law called from Iraq. They expected news about a new baby.
“And then they said no, the baby, we lost the baby,” she said.
They asked why. What happened?
“They did not want to tell us first,” Najem said. “And then when we kept asking they told us that, ‘Yeah, because she had infection and we could not find the medicine for her.’”
Hamoodi’s sister-in-law couldn’t afford $10 antibiotics to treat an infection and prevent a miscarriage. Najem said she and her husband had to help.
“You can never enjoy the life and sit and be happy, and you know that your family — they are suffering," she said.
When Hamoodi started sending money to his family in 1994, he knew it was illegal.
Hamoodi couldn’t speak from prison for this story. But Inside Columbia Magazine interviewed him this summer.
"I felt obligated and responsible to extend a hand of compassionate and mercy to my family in Iraq," Hamoodi said in that interview. "So I was sending them some relief funds so as they could buy food and medicine locally there.”
No one has ever proven that Hamoodi’s money supported Saddam Hussein’s government. But U.S. officials argue that Hamoodi chose to skirt the rules instead of sending aid legally.
Don Ledford, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, which prosecuted the case, said when cash is transferred across international borders, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to trace its destination.
“There is no way to know whether those funds wind up in the hands of terrorists or innocent family members. For that reason, the very act of smuggling funds in violation of U.S. sanctions is necessarily a crime,” he said.
Hamoodi, Ledford said, chose to commit a federal crime and the court justly sentenced him.
With Hamoodi now in prison, his family is stumbling through life without him. Najem, Hamoodi’s wife, teaches Arabic to second-graders. She has never been apart from her husband for so long.
“We were always together,” she said. “He’s always there to help me, support me. So, he’s a big part of my life.”
Hamoodi’s oldest son, Owais Abdul-Kafi, is in medical school and now also runs the gourmet grocery store his father started. He thinks his father’s case is ridiculous.
“Makes no sense,” he said. “You’re taking a very productive citizen, a very highly educated person, who did a noble and humanitarian deed, you’re imprisoning him.”
Hamoodi’s 15-year-old son, Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Kafi, also feels his father’s absence.
“Usually we would sit as a family after prayer and talk, just say what happened that day and stuff like that,” he said. It made the day “finish at a good rate.”
Craig Van Matre, a pro-bono lawyer in Columbia, is working for Hamoodi. He flipped through a petition that asks President Barack Obama to shorten his client's sentence. It has thousands of signatures and letters from people Hamoodi has helped. But Van Matre said his petition is a long shot. Obama has only commuted one sentence in his term.
“There are literally thousands of people clamoring for the president’s attention,” Van Matre said. “And penetrating that noise to single out this one case is going to be a very, very difficult task.”
Hamoodi’s son, Abdul-Kafi, said his family believes this is just a test, a test from God.
"It’s kind of a test of how faithful and resilient we are," he said.
In an email, a Justice Department official said Hamoodi’s petition is being considered, but could not estimate when there would be a decision.
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Riad El-Taher started writing this book in Wandsworth prison, south-west London where he served a ten-month sentence for breaches of sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime.
El-Taher regarded himself as a political prisoner. He was imprisoned after pleading guilty to a case brought against him by the Serious Fraud Office(SFO) for breaking UN sanctions imposed on Iraq. He was one of thousands across the world who had to pay a surcharge to the Iraqi regime following oil allocations. After the Gulf War, the UN named thousands of companies, individuals, governments etc who had been involved but only a handful of prosecutions have been brought and those have only been in the US and the UK. No other countries have gone down this route.
El-Taher paid a surcharge on allocations given to him under the UN Oil-for-Food programme to glean information which might prevent the war or lead to a relaxation of sanctions. He had direct access to Saddam’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and briefed diplomats, including the MI6 attaché at the British Embassy in Amman, Jordan, and passed on the message that “Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction.” Among his political contacts was the late Rt Hon Robin Cook Britain’s former foreign secretary, the former International Development Secretary Rt Hon Clare Short, and senior MP’s including Tam Dalyell and Rt Hon Tony Benn.
El-Taher pleaded guilty, after fighting the SFO for over two and a half years because his lawyer told him he would receive a non-custodial sentence. This was not the case and he was sentenced to 10 months - reduced to eight months – in prison. He strongly believes that he was a political prisoner and that this prosecution was only vigorously enforced, due to his political activities in his campaigning for lifting sanctions on Iraq and the bringing of high-ranking Baathists, imprisoned without charge following the toppling of Saddam’s regime, to trial. He cooperated with the Chilcot Inquiry which investigated Britain’s role in the Iraq war during the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath.
El-Taher feels he was used by both the British and Iraqi governments. “I was doing something good, something positive, passing on intelligence to establish dialogue. I was instrumental in setting up the first visit from the British War Graves Commission to Iraq and the Iraqis cooperated in preserving the grave of Gertrude Bell. Baroness Kennedy was about to start cultural links with Iraq and there was a chance to resurrect the offices of the British Council in Baghdad.”
Hans von Sponeck, head of the UN Oil-for-Food programme from 1998 to 2000, said: "Riad El-Taher was a concerned and committed person who spoke out on the injustices of international policy. If he broke the rules then he is accountable for his own actions. But he is a small fish."
Denis Halliday, a former head of the UN humanitarian programme in Iraq , said that the jailing of El-Taher showed continuing "double standards" over Iraq . "What is appalling is that the real culprits, those who cheated most on sanctions, are the big guys - governments, politicians and major companies in Australia, the US, India, France and Russia who paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam.”
Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith, who sentenced El-Taher at Southwark Crown Court seemed to acknowledge that many guilty people would never stand trial, saying: "It must seem to you to be unfair to be in the dock while many others are not." He concluded that his primary motive was financial gain and that he had made £86,000 from selling his oil allocations.
Mr Dalyell, the former Father of the Commons said: "At a time when the Justice Secretary wants to reduce the prison population it seems preposterous to be sending a 71-year-old man, who poses no threat to the public, to jail in such controversial circumstances.”
The prosecution and subsequent imprisonment of a 'small fish' in this ocean clearly illustrates the discrimination and unfairness of Britain’s legal system. In excess of £20 million have been spent bringing the prosecution to see El-Taher spend five months in prison, again at tax payers’ expense. He has appealed against his conviction. On 27th April 2011 he was released from prison to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.
He was ordered to pay £500,000 for confiscation of his assets which he allegedly acquired due to his involvement with the Oil-for-Food Programme and ordered to pay a further £70,000 towards his legal aid. Yet the court decided that he only benefitted by receiving £86,000 from the programme.
He decided to tell the story of this life to expose the illusion of democracy.
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