The Niqabi Paralegal

Who or what is the Charitable Society for Social Welfare? That question has come to the forefront in the trial of Numan Maflahi.

In 1999, Maflahi accompanied Yemeni Sheikh Abdullah Satar on a tour of mosques in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Prosecutors allege that they were engaged in fundraising. Maflahi, described as the director of the New York branch of CSSW, has been convicted of obstructing an FBI investigation into the charity. CSSW is said to be based in Yemen.

There is indeed a Charitable Society for Social Welfare in Yemen. It was founded in 1990 and its website describes it as the "first voluntary organization in Yemen". It is recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization (NGO) and has worked with the U.N. Capital Development Fund, the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, the World Bank, and the United Nations Center on Human Settlement, as well other charitable organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Catholic Institute for International Relations, in their development and aid projects in Yemen. It took part in a 2002 UNICEF conference on children and is in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations as of August 2003.

The New York branch, according to the Associated Press, was incorporated for the purpose of aiding "single mothers and their children in Kings County". The state of New York lists it as an "active" non-profit although the Attorney General's office has no record of it and the mailing address is a coin-operated laundry currently closed for renovations.

Further complicating matters is a now-defunct organization, also called the Charitable Society for Social Welfare, registered in the Midwest (possibly the same as the Kansas organization listed in this 1996 directory of Muslim relief organizations). Mohammad Hilali, former president of this CSSW, says that his organization was founded in the mid 1990s to help victims of civil war in Yemen and that it was "legal and authentic" and had no connection to the New York charity.

Prosecutors in Maflahi's trial alleged that Satar and Maflahi solicited funds for local causes but that the money actually went to Yemen. The FBI believes that CSSW is a front for financing terrorism, although it has not formally been desigated as such by the Treasury Department. Satar denies that he was engaged in any fundraising activities during his 1999 visit. After leaving New York, Satar allegedly met with El Sayed Abdelkader Mahmoud, who was convicted in absentia in Milan in January of criminal association with Al-Qaida (Mahmoud's location is unknown, and he is believed to have died in Afghanistan).

An earlier story in the New York Times says that Satar is a member of Yemen's parliament. FBI agent Brian Murphy says that Maflahi told him that Satar had a status in Yemen similar to that of New York's senators in their state. The deputy chief of the Yemeni embassy in Washington, Yahya Alshawkani, said that he had heard of Satar but knew little of him and did not know how to contact him.

Satar has not been charged.

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