Iraqi-American is imprisoned by US for saving his family from US sanctions | Glenn Greenwald

A terrible case of parodies Missouri highlights an engineer usually imposed on American Muslims

'm traveling around the United States on a lecture tour, and as I've written before, one of the main advantages of doing this is to meet people and families whose lives have been severely damaged by the attack against the fundamental freedoms post-9/11. This prevents against these injustices as abstractions and to ensure that the very real costs of these human government abuses remain alive.

Such is the case of the treatment of Dr. Shakir Hamoodi, a US-Iraqi nuclear engineer who is just starting a prison sentence of three years in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. prison for the "crime" of sending of money to relatives living poor, the sick and the suffering in Iraq - including her blind mother - during the years when U.S. sanctions (which is what caused the suffering of his family) prohibits sending money Iraq.

Yesterday in Columbia, Missouri, I met the son Hamoodi, Owais, a medical student at the University of Missouri (MU), Faculty of Medicine, and Hamoodi step-son, Amir Yehia, Masters student at the School of Journalism at MU. Parody of this case - and the damage it has caused in the family - is truly repulsive and irritating. But it is unfortunately common in post-9/11 America, especially American Muslim communities.

Hamoodi came with his wife to the United States in 1985 to work on his doctorate in nuclear engineering from MU, not wanting to return to the oppressive regime of Saddam stayed in the United States States. He was offered a teaching position at the University of the investigation proceeded to have five children born in the United States, all of which he and his wife raised in the community of Columbia, and later became a citizen U.S.. 2002.

But the sanctions imposed by the United States after the first Gulf War had decimated the value of the Iraqi currency and caused extreme hardship for his family who remained in Iraq. Penalties that killed at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including 500,000 Iraqi children. In 1991, the writer visited Iraq Chuck Sudetic wrote in Mother Jones about the widespread suffering, death and mass starvation witnessed first hand, and noted that the sanctions led by the United States "more of civilians killed all chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that are used in human history. "

sanctions Hamoodi family decimated. His old blind mother could not afford basic medicines. His sister, one of 11 brothers back in Iraq, suffered a miscarriage because she was not able to buy antibiotics $ 10. His brother, a surgeon, won the equivalent of $ 2 per month and literally unable to feed his family.

Hamoodi earned a modest salary at the time of about $ 35,000 per year at the university, but - as would be true of any decent person of conscience - could not ignore the suffering and extreme more families in Iraq. Because sending money to Iraq the U.S. was physically impossible, created a bank account in Jordan and began to make small deposits in it. In this story, the small amounts of money - between $ 20 and $ 100 per month - dispersed family members

When other Iraqi citizens in their communities Missouri heard his help to his family, he wanted to own a great help. So Hamoodi began to accept a similar amount of money from a small group of Iraqis and made sure they were paid to members of their families who are suffering under the sanctions regime. From 1993 to 2003, when sanctions were lifted after the U.S. invasion, Hamoodi sent an average of $ 25,000 per year for Iraq, totaling approximately $ 250,000 during the decade: the amount fed and Iraqis said parents 14 families in Columbia, Missouri, five brothers of his wife.

Nobody, including the U.S. government claims that these amounts were for anything other than humanitarian assistance for his family and others in your community. Everyone, including the U.S. government recognizes that these funds have been sent and received by recipients only - parents suffering Iraqis - and has never been anywhere near Saddam, terrorist groups, or anything illegal. In a Newsweek article on the matter clear Hamoodi

"The money was distributed mainly dropper ... even the authorities admit, $ 40 per month for the child of a friend trying to eat while attending school of Medicine, $ 80 for Hamoodi blind mother. Nothing indicates that terrorists ... Hamoodi subsidized or that money ended up in the hands of Saddam Hussein. revenue tracks email has been prepared as tidy as Accounting Store

"I would like to receive messages from my sisters, I have 11 children," he said, while sharing a meal dark - South Africa spicy red peppers, French cheese, crispy baklava - with its wife and children in the long dining table. "They are hungry. Hunger. So I did what any person, any American would. "

But in 2002 and 2003, but Hamoodi was a nuclear engineer. He was also an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's plan to attack Iraq. And its position as an engineer nuclear threat is especially powerful if the invasion, which are continually insisted that Saddam had no active nuclear weapons program and that the case for war was based on lies. In his activism against the war, stressed suffer because of Iraqi civilians who suffer the most, and how the invasion would lead to mass instability.

On September 18, 2006, two Hamoodi son, Owais, then 17, and his sister Lamees college age, were at home when someone knocked at the door. Owais replied and I saw two FBI agents who were there, and behind them there were 35 armed federal agents, many with weapons in hand, ten different agencies of law enforcement. They told him they had a search warrant to search your house, then entered.

"We wanted to stay and see what they have done, but we were told that we had to leave because he said he had no one to keep an eye on us," Owais, emphasizing once more that 35 agents were present. agents spent 9 hours Hamoodi home alone and unsupervised. they took all the passports they found any identification (including the learner's permit age 15, Owais brother, "who was left without identification), heirlooms, photo albums, and boxes of documents. Owais Even them insisted that he used his calculator for algebra class on the ground that had a memory potential. So far - six years later - the family has received such materials back

The spectacular massive FBI raid on his home Hamoodi predictable generated considerable media coverage in their community. "FBI agents searched the home today of a British businessman and former Iraqi president who was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war," read the first line of a long article in the local Columbia Daily Tribune. "People, of course, automatically assumes terrorism," said Owais.

few years later, he was accused and ultimately Hamoodi first learned his "crime", as this excellent article by Inside Columbia, where appropriate, he said, "has hit some decrees of the Gulf war, an act of Congress and the Treasury Department regulations "that prohibit sending money to Iraq.

• From the beginning, Hamoodi fully cooperated with federal investigators. He admitted that he had sent money to Iraq to help his starving family and other families in Colombia. Calling it a "crime of compassion," pleaded guilty to the charge of having participated in a "conspiracy to violate the International Economic Emergency Law powers."

Owais said the conviction of his father was accompanied by the near certainty that he would receive no jail time. "There were about five other cases involving much larger amounts sent to Iraq, some accusations that the money came to the regime, and very light sentences and are included by the judge in the case of my father, who had give another probation Iraqi citizen to send more money than my father. "In addition, delays in the procedure caused the sentencing hearing would not occur until the summer of 2012 - nine years after the penalties expired, and nine years after Hamoodi sent its final payment to Iraq.

But
May 16, 2012, stood before U.S. District Judge Hamoodi Nanette Laughrey appointed by Clinton, she was sentenced to three years in federal prison - just two years less than the maximum penalty by the sentencing guidelines for federal crime - followed by three years probation. Hamoodi step-son, Amir Yehia, was both sentencing hearing of his father-in-law and other Iraqi citizens who received probation by Judge Laughrey only four months ago for a similar offense. "This time, it was like a totally different person," he said. "I do not know if it was down or had received back after the test that occurred in both cases, but c ' was amazing to see how it was completely different to your hearing. "

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