NYC mosque investor gave to Hamas-linked charity

Ground Zero backer's lawyer says his client had no knowledge of the group's involvement with terrorist organization when he donated money.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ground Zero 311 (photo credit: Associated Press)
Ground Zero 311
(photo credit: Associated Press)
NEW YORK — One of the investors in a proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City is a Long Island medical clinic owner whose expressions of sympathy for Palestinians included a donation to a charity later shut down for links to Hamas.
The developer leading the project confirmed Friday that Hisham Elzanaty, 51, is among the members of a real estate partnership that paid $4.8 million last year for the vacant clothing store that is to be torn down and replaced by a cultural center and mosque.
RELATED:Editorial: Common sense at Ground ZeroOpinion: The Ground Zero mosque - what US could learn from IsraelOpinion: Undercurrents below the Ground Zero mosque
The partnership's general manager, Sharif El-Gamal, confirmed Elzanaty's role in response to a media report about his reputed involvement.
"All of these investors are committed, as I am, not to receive funding from any organization that supports terrorism or is hostile to America," El-Gamal said in a statement.
El-Gamal has so-far declined to reveal the names of his other financial backers, but has said the eight-member group is diverse and includes Jews and Christians.
Those involved with the Islamic Center proposal have come under intense scrutiny from groups opposed to the project, and critics point to a donation Elzanaty made to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a decade ago as evidence that its backers secretly harbor extremist views.
Tax records show that Elzanaty gave $6,050 to the foundation in 1999. At the time, it was the largest Islamic charity in the US. It raised millions of dollars from Americans in the 1990s, telling donors the money would fund schools, orphanages and social welfare programs.
Two years after Elzanaty made the donation, the US government froze the foundation's assets and accused it of acting as a fundraiser for Hamas, which was labeled a terrorist organization by President Clinton in 1995.
The foundation and some of its leaders were indicted in 2004 on charges of supporting Hamas. Five were ultimately convicted.
Elzanaty's lawyer told a WNYW reporter in a report broadcast Thursday night that his client had no knowledge of the group's involvement with Hamas when he donated the money, and had intended the cash to go to an orphanage.
Many other donors to the foundation gave thinking their donations would fund humanitarian programs.
Other people and companies who donated money, equipment or services to the foundation the year Elzanaty gave included NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon, the Microsoft Corp., and a medical equipment company owned by General Electric, according to tax records.
Elzanaty, whose mother and father died on a flight from New York to Cairo that went down in the Atlantic in 1999, has made no secret of his past philanthropy involving the Palestinians. In a 2002 interview with Newsday, he spoke of a hesitation to donate to Middle Eastern charities because of concerns that it could unwittingly land him in a terror investigation.
"When you see people surrounded by tanks and F-16s, you ask how can we help?" he told the paper. "But you don't want years later to have a knock on the door and someone asking why did you donate money?"