get my site to the top of google

her location. Garad would then call a hawala in the refugee camp. Or maybe he would contact another larger company, Amal Express, and transfer the $100 to its account at the Bank of Dubai, and Amal Express representatives would find the hawala closest to the recipient. Garad would usually charge customers a commission of 5 percent, two-thirds of which he sent on to the other hawala brokers, one-third of which he kept. He made about $1,500 a month. "I was big guy," Garad recalls. "People like me. Always they call me, nighttime. I was the first guy who started this business" in the area. Most hawala transactions are completely innocent. But officials say that terrorists often make use of hawalas -- which are prominent in the Middle East and East Asia -- because of the anonymity they provide. The deal is agreed to between halawa brokers, often with the use of a code word, and when it is completed all records are disposed of. A 1999 study by the Treasury Department identified hawalas as having been used by terrorists to fund terrorism in India, and as the principal means of money laundering from East Asian heroin trafficking. That November press conference featuring Bush, Powell, Ashcroft and O'Neill was an attempt to combat the hawala network Al-Barakaat, which Bush said "is a group of money-wiring and communication companies owned by a friend and supporter of Osama bin Laden," and Al Taqua, an association of offshore banks and financial management firms that he said had helped al-Qaida shift money around the world. Garad Jama's co-plaintiff in his April 2002 lawsuit, Abdullahi Farah of Global Services International, was indeed dealing with Al-Barakaat, though he maintains that he was not aware of its involvement in any terrorism-related activities. But Garad Jama did not deal with either Al-Barakaat or Al Taqwa. Still, was it possible someone used him to send money used for nefarious purposes? Garad doesn't think so. His customers all have references. Besides, they are mostly Somali, some Ethiopians. "We don't deal with people from the Middle East." The relatively small sums sent would also seem to undermine the government's case that Jama was a big-time al-Qaida supporter. But bin Laden has bragged in the past that he trained and provided arms for the Somali fighters under warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, the infamous soldiers from "Black Hawk Down" who were involved in the Oct. 3, 1993, battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, that left 18 U.S. Army Ranger and Delta Force soldiers dead and 84 wounded. Garad says he doesn't know anything about that, but argues that al-Qaida's international interests don't fit in with the Somali character. He doesn't think the men from Amal Express would get involved in such things; they're Somalis and good Muslims. "Somali is trouble," he says. "Have you heard of any Somali suicide bombers? Have you of any Somali who hijacks a plane? No. In Somalia they kill each other. They don't focus on other peoples." From the very beginning there was reason to question the government's case. The Treasury Department's "Designation and Blocking Memorandum," listed Fartune's maiden name -- Fartune Ahmed Wasrsame -- as one of her husband's aliases. I discovered this after just one phone call to Fartune on Nov. 7; you'd think maybe the government would have known enough about the Jamas to have avoided such an error. But no one from the government had even interviewed Garad Jama before President Bush quite publicly called him a terrorist. "No one talked to me before, or even after," Jama says. But that didn't matter right then. Fartune was terrified. And alone. Garad had left for Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 11, to meet with some representatives from Amal Express, Inc., and to do some shopping for his family. Fartune called him there on a friend's cellphone he was using. "She was yelling to me, 'Your office has been raided and your business is shut down! Listen to messages!'" So he called into his voice mail back in Minneapolis. "I got CNN, I got NBC: 'Call us, call us.' Washington Post: 'Call us.'" Photographers and TV cameramen somehow having been given notice ahead of time, agents of the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, United States Customs Service and others searched Garad's office on the second floor of 1806 Riverside Ave. in Minneapolis. They took records and locked the door. A sign on the door now read: "All property contained in this building is blocked pursuant to an executive order of the president on Sept. 23 of this year under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act." In Dubai, Garad couldn't believe what Fartune was telling him. He ran to Amal Express's office and asked to use a computer. He hopped onto the Internet, punched up CNN.com and the story was front page center. He clicked on, and the name of his business was on the top of the list -- the curse of alphabetical order. "Designated on November 7, 2001 1. Aaran Money Wire Service, Inc ... " "This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong," Garad said. "I have to go back." He phoned an attorney, David Sullivan, who had done some work for his business. "You're in trouble," Garad says Sullivan told him. "What do you want to do?" "I want to come back," Garad said. Sullivan said he would help him find a criminal lawyer. Soon he did: Rick Petry, a criminal defense attorney with the Minneapolis firm of Frederikson and Byron. They spoke. Two days later, Petry met Garad at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "My heart was --" Garad searches for the word. He pats his chest, pound pound pound "-- very scared," he finally says. Petry spoke to him, interviewed him, found out all he could. He asked Garad to let him know as soon as the government contacted him. But the government never called. Meanwhile, Garad Jama couldn't believe what the government was accusing him of doing -- but the media certainly could. "Terrorist assets seized in raids," one Associated Press story was headlined. "Agents search Minnesota businesses on Bush terrorist list," blared another. The St. Paul Pioneer Press announced: "Cash-transfer offices raided. Local wire services that help immigrants send money home are linked to Osama bin Laden." "Before Sept. 11, I never heard before of al-Qaida," Garad says. But now his name was "everywhere" as an alleged member of the terrorist group. "I was here Sept. 11. I know people, how they anger, how they feel," he says. A red, white and blue "United We Stand" placard hung in his former office, media reports indicated. Home sick with a cold, Garad watched the first plane hit the first tower and thought it was an accident of some sort. Then the second plane hit. "I was crying," he says. "I saw people in the towers, innocent people, they are doing their jobs. All the people falling off the building." To this day, he bristles when asked how he feels about bin Laden or al-Qaida. "As you know, the No. 1 enemy is al-Qaida," he says. "We are Muslims, we do not support killing innocent people." In the Quran, he says, "it says if you kill somebody innocent you kill all humans." OK, fine, but there are clearly some Muslims with a somewhat different interpretation of the Quran, who may not think of Americans as innocent. Garad gets annoyed. "We are not supporting whoever kills innocent people, terrorism. We had a lot of warlords in Somalia who killed innocent people, so we are not supporting anyone else who does it." Reporters ask him questions like this and it bothers him. "We are Americans," he says. "We don't like any of the enemies. Bin Laden is No. 1 enemy. How can I support him, people who are killing innocent people? There is no way. If I ask you, 'Do you like bin Laden?' that's a foolish question." "I understand," he finally says. "I am Muslim. That's why you ask me questions like that. But how can you ask if I think bin Laden is doing right? He did Sept. 11." He has other things to worry about besides geopolitics, at any rate, Garad says. Ayan was born in 1994, Yonas in 1996. "For three years he was always in hospital. He has a heart problem. Sometimes he paralyzed. We focused on our family. We don't have time to support someone who kills people. I try to take care of my family." He is a devout Muslim, but this does not make him a man of hate, he says. "One of my doctors for Yonas is a nice guy. He is Jewish. And we love each other. We have nice relations. He was helping my son. People understand, people who live here, we have respect." When Garad got home from the airport, he looked through the newspapers. He had no idea where TV news, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Pioneer Press, got his photo. He couldn't believe how fluent Fartune seemed in the interviews she gave. Suddenly, when forced to defend her husband, "I got English!" Fartune told him. And she was able to converse with reporters in English with a proficiency she didn't know she had. "I don't know where I got these words!" she said. But if his wife's loyalty heartened him, Garad was saddened by the way most people looked at him after the news broke. "People are scared of me. They think I'm a terrorist. People who used to call me, they never call me." Garad says he was "waiting for the government to say something." They didn't, but soon a letter arrived: U.S. Department of Treasury Nov. 30, 2001 Dear Mr. Jama: This letter is to inform you that pursuant to Executive Order No. 13224 (66FR49079), issued by President Bush on September 23, 2001 (the "Order"), and under the authority granted by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. SS 1701-06 ("IEERA"), the Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), U.S. Department of the Treasury, added your name to the list of persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism (specifically designated global terrorist ("SDGT")) ... R. Richard Newcomb Director Office of Foreign Assets Control Specifically designated global terrorist Garad Jama appeared on the government's master list of "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons," as well as in its brochure on "Terrorism." He couldn't get into his place of business. His professional and personal bank accounts had been legally blocked. There was $166,111.86 in his Associated Bank account, all of which was other people's money on its way to one hawala or another. There was $41,225.35 in his personal Wells Fargo account, which he sometimes used for business transfers as well since Wells Fargo has more branches around the world. That was blocked, too. Several customers got angry at Garad; some threatened violence. But Garad had no way to repay them. Though he had become an American citizen in 1997, the U.S. government was now telling him he was prohibited from conducting any business whatsoever. Rent, utilities, food, clothes -- he had no way to pay for any of these. Nor was he permitted to buy groceries or spend money on day-to-day expenses. John Lundquist, who took Petry's place when Petry left the law firm, says that he once asked a government lawyer how it's possible for someone to survive a blocking notice. "Is Mr. Jama breathing?" the lawyer asked. "I believe so," Lundquist responded. "Then he's probably in violation of the blocking notice," the government lawyer said nonchalantly. Garad's lawyers wrote to the government -- the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC -- on Dec. 14, 2001, asking for limited permission to get some funds from the blocked accounts "necessary to satisfy Plaintiffs' legal fees and expenses." A Dec. 28, 2001, letter to OFAC noted that because one of the blocking orders covered Garad Jama as a person, and not just his business, "it is virtually impossible for him to pay any bills or receive any funds whatsoever. This is an extreme emergency for him that requires immediate attention." But the government didn't seem exactly on top of the matter. Despite several conversations about it, OFAC never granted the request. Letters were not answered, calls went unreturned. No one interviewed Garad to ascertain his guilt or innocence, to clear him or build a case or get whatever information they could from him. They labeled him a terrorist and then walked away as if it never happened. On Dec. 14, 2001, Garad and his attorneys wrote to OFAC and said they would reorganize his business in any way they wanted him to. If they wanted him to stop dealing with Amal Express, he would do so. OFAC never got back to them. On Jan. 7, 2002, Garad's attorneys again contacted OFAC. Any word on Garad's request to get some of his money, to be allowed to seek employment? Nada. On Feb. 7, 2002, an OFAC official told Garad's lawyers "that he did not understand why OFAC had not issued the requested license and indicated that he would investigate the issue," the lawyers later wrote. They spoke again on Feb. 26, 2002. The OFAC official said he didn't quite know what was going on, but that he would put a "red star" next to Garad's request. The lawyers, meanwhile, were also urging OFAC to lift the blocking notice altogether since Garad had nothing to do with terrorist activities. They wrote to OFAC on Jan. 10, Jan. 15 and Feb. 14, 2002; they called on Jan. 23, Feb. 20 and March 11, 2002. Nada. On April 12, 2002, Garad and his attorneys decided they had to take other action. They sued the government for the blocking orders, for labeling him a terrorist -- "and in the process being totally inconsistent with the Constitution," Lundquist says.