FRESNO, Calif. – A California man accused of trying to supply stolen U.S. military equipment and defense secrets to Yemen was denied bail Friday after a prosecutor said he had ties to a terrorist financier who plotted to help Al Qaeda and Hamas.
The allegations emerged at a hearing for Amen Ahmed Ali, 56.
In pressing to keep Ali behind bars, prosecutors said that a search of Ali's house turned up contact information for Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad in Ali's address book.
Al-Moayad, a Yemeni cleric serving a 75-year prison sentence, was convicted in New York last year of conspiring to support and attempting to support Al Qaeda and the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, and of actually supporting Hamas.
Ali was arrested Sept. 7 at his cigarette shop in Bakersfield and charged along with two other men, all three of them Yemeni-born U.S. citizens.
Prosecutors said Ali planned to send chemical suits and body armor to Yemen without State Department authorization.
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