With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem, IOL Washington D.C.

WASHINGTON D.C., Sept 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A U.S. district judge handed a victory to a U.S.-based Muslim charity Friday, tossing out perjury charges against Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) and its director Enaam Arnaout.

The ruling, handed down Friday by Judge Joan Gottschall, paves the way for Arnaout, 39, to be released Monday after four months in custody.

Arnaout has been held without bond since he was arrested April 30 at his home in suburban Chicago on charges that he allegedly lied about his organization’s ties to military groups, including Al-Qa’eda and the Chechen mujahedin.

However, Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said he would seek to keep Arnaout behind bars by filing charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements prior to a hearing Monday.

Fitzgerald filed the new criminal complaint late Friday night, news Agencies reported.

As for Judge Gottschall's decision, Fitzgerald, said "we respectfully disagree with the judge's ruling. The opinion relies on a technical interpretation of the perjury statute and has no bearing on the facts of the case."

The charges are a technicality: federal prosecutors were afraid that Arnaout would flee the country before they could build a case against him and BIF for allegedly funneling charitable donations to militants overseas.

American Muslim and civil rights activists assert that the charges against Benevolence Foundation, and other American Muslim charities, are nothing more than the latest arsenal in the U.S.’s “witch-hunt” of American Muslims.

"This is definitely another witch-hunt," Shaker Al Sayed of the Muslim American Society [MAS] told IslamOnline in the early days of the investigation.

"The established facts are that in the past several months the U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ] has arrested or detained thousands of Muslims, and in the end charged no one with any crimes.

"The maximum was charging one person with knowing one of the hijackers of September 11. And even that charge was thrown out of court by the judge for government misconduct," El Sayed continued, referring to Judge Shira A. Scheindlin's ruling earlier this year that the Justice Department has "overreached in imprisoning as 'material witnesses' men the authorities believe might have information for grand juries investigating terrorism."

U.S. authorities raided BIF offices in Palos Hills, Illinois in December last year and froze the charity's assets as part of its post September 11 clampdown on U.S.-based Muslim charities it suspected of channeling money to so called “militants”.

BIF sued to have the block on their assets frozen in January 2002, and when Arnaout later indicated he intended to travel to Saudi Arabia, federal prosecutors stepped in and filed perjury charges, alleging he lied in court filings submitted as part of that lawsuit.

Arnaout has repeatedly asserted that the foundation "never provided meaningful support for organizations engaged in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature," in a sworn affidavit filed as part of the civil suit the charity has brought against U.S. authorities.

Neither Armout nor his lawyers have been available for comment.