From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
The U.S. Treasury Department on 10 June designated Lebanese Hizballah member Assad Ahmad Barakat and two of his companies -- Casa Apollo and Barakat Import -- as responsible for terrorist financing in South America’s tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, according to the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs. Barakat reportedly used strong-arm tactics and coercion to raise money that was sent to Hizballah in Lebanon and Iran. As of late 2001, he reportedly traveled to Lebanon and Iran annually. On these trips he allegedly met with Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and spiritual leader Hussein Fadlallah. Barakat also served as deputy financial director for a religious center in Brazil called the Husseinieh Imam Khomeini. Regional intelligence sources previously identified Assad Ahmad Barakat’s brother, Sheikh Akram Ahmad Barakat, as a kind of roving Iranian ambassador for Latin America. Barakat currently is imprisoned in Paraguay for tax evasion. |