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Global
Relief Files Lawsuit Over Frozen Assets
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| U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill, Secretary of State Colin Powell
and FBI chief Robert Mueller are all named in the suit. |
BRIDGEVIEW,
Illinois, Jan. 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A U.S.-based
Muslim charity has filed suit against the U.S. government, seeking
to overturn an order freezing its assets and records.
Global Relief Foundation (GRF) charged the Treasury Department with
illegally freezing its assets, smearing its reputation and
effectively putting it out of business in a civil suit filed Monday
in U.S. district court.
FBI and Treasury agents raided the charity's Bridgeview offices in
December 2001, carting off everything from computers to furniture,
in one of a number of raids on Muslim charitable organizations.
The groups, including the top U.S. Islamic charity, the Texas-based
Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, were targeted in
the wake of the September 11 attacks, as U.S. officials sought to
crackdown on groups it suspected of funneling money to terrorist
groups.
But in the civil suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, lawyers for GRF, which raised five
million dollars for Muslim charitable causes in 2000, insisted that
the U.S. government had never furnished any evidence to back up its
suspicions.
"GRF is a lawful American company," said attorney Roger
Simmons in a statement.
"The U.S. government has made no charges against GRF and has
not given it a day in court to prove its innocence.
"The blocking of GRF's assets, seizure of its documents, and
subsequent public statements by representatives of the federal
government accusing GRF of ties to terrorism have violated the
constitutional rights of this U.S. corporate citizen. We seek due
process and a legitimate means of redressing of GRF's
grievances."
The lawsuit seeks to overturn the Treasury Department’s blocking
notice issued December 14, 2001, that froze all assets and records
held by GRF.
One of GRF’s arguments is that although the federal government
took these actions purportedly invoking laws designed to seize
assets of foreign organizations, GRF is a U.S.-based corporation.
One of the allegations in the lawsuit states that the federal
government is unlawfully prohibiting the creation of a legal defense
fund to allow U.S. citizens to voluntarily contribute to legal and
media efforts to defend GRF.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Federal Bureau of
Investigation chief Robert Mueller are all named in the suit. 
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