DAMASCUS, December 19 (IslamOnline & News) - A Hamas leader indicted by a U.S. grand jury for allegedly helping fund terrorist activities, refuted the charges Thursday, December 19, lambasting "an American campaign against Muslims."

Moussa Abu-Marzuk was charged by a federal grand jury in Dallas, Texas, with allegedly conspiring to violate laws that prohibit dealing in terrorist funds, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The case stems from the arrests in the United States of five brothers who are alleged to have used their computer business to channel money to Abu-Marzuk to fund attacks in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In unveiling the indictments Wednesday, December 18, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the United States would "follow the money of terror" as part of a crackdown on suspected terrorist funding after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But Abu-Marzuk, a former permanent U.S. resident who was deported to Jordan in 1997 after being jailed for 22 months and is now based in Damascus, told AFP that the U.S. allegations "are not true at all."

"If they were [true], they would have accused me during my arrest in the United States," he said.

"It's a permanent campaign against Muslims and their causes, and against the Palestinians in the interests of the Zionist enemy. It is the same old story," he said.

Also charged and arrested early Wednesday in the United States was Ghassan El-Ashi, chairman of a charity called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, whose funds were frozen and which was shut down by U.S. authorities in December 2001.

El-Ashi and four of his brothers - all employees of the Richardson, Texas-based INFOCOM Corporation - were charged with selling computers and computer parts to Libya and Syria, two countries that are "designated state sponsors of terrorism," according to Ashcroft.

Also charged in the 33-count indictment was Abu-Marzuk's wife, Nadia.

U.S. investigators noted Holy Land and INFOCOM shared some of the same employees as well as the same office park, claiming that both groups had received their seed money from Abu-Marzuk.

Wednesday's indictment alleges that Abu-Marzuk and his wife, a cousin of the El-Ashi brothers, engaged in what it described as a scheme with INFOCOM officials to disguise Abu-Marzuk's capital investment in the company and to continue to receive profits from the group.

If convicted, they would face maximum penalties of 10 years in prison on charges of illegally exporting products to Syria and Libya, 10 to 20 years for money laundering, 10 years for dealing in the property of a designate terrorist, and five years for making false documents, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

The defendants could also be subject to fines of up to 7.2 million dollars.

However, Abu-Marzuk said "it is clear that as for the United States, it wants to create distrust against all Muslim causes, rightly or wrongly."

He said his wife had invested money in INFOCOM, but noted the company "had gone bankrupt."

"Ghassan El-Ashi and his brothers have absolutely no link with the Hamas movement, nor the closed charity foundation," he said.

In 1995, Washington declared Abu-Marzuk a "specially designated terrorist" and U.S. citizens are banned from having financial dealings with him.

Marzuk was expelled from U.S. ally Jordan in September 1999 following the closure of the Hamas bureau in Amman, before moving on to Dubai and then Damascus.