GRANTS PASS, Oregon — Prosecutors asked to send the co-founder of an Islamic charity based in Oregon to prison for conspiring to smuggle $150,000 to Chechen insurgents and trying to cover up the money on the organization’s tax return.
Pete Seda, also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty, was convicted in September. The former Ashland tree surgeon and co-founder of Al-Haramain is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in a court in the city of Eugene.
Federal prosecutors contend in a sentencing memo that Seda “intended to promote” terrorism by helping Islamic fighters battling Russia in Chechnya and asked that he be sentenced to eight years. Defense attorneys filed papers arguing that the time Seda has already spent in jail is enough.
(AP)
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