| A gas station owner today got the maximum sentence of five years in prison for lying about his ties to a Yemeni sheik who raised money in Brooklyn for al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. The judge said that Numan Maflahi, a Yemen-born U.S. citizen, lied when he told agents that he had limited contact with Sheik Abdullah Satar and no involvement in Satar’s fund raising. FBI agents had watched as Maflahi ``spent almost every waking hour’’ with Satar during a 1999 fund-raising trip to New York. Agents were investigating Satar during the celebrations of the millenium. Maflahi’s attorney, Hassen Abdellah, vowed to appeal. |