Hundreds of children have had to break off their schooling because of the US charges against the charity.

COPENAGEN, July 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Danish Muslim aid group has been cleared of US allegations of financing terrorist groups after a nine-month investigation by the Danish authorities.

The Danish Muslim Aid (DM-AID) has received a letter from the prosecutor for economic crimes stating that there "was no reasonable presumption" that it had helped fund terrorist groups, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday, July 26.

"Our reputation in the world has been stained and our work over 15 years among the destitute has been ruined by a lie," Abdul Wahid Pedersen, the group's president, told AFP.

The probe was launched in October 2004 after the charity, previously known as the Independent Scandinavian Relief Agency (ISRA), was blacklisted by the US Treasury Department on claims of financing terrorist groups.

Since then, the aid group has been banned from collecting funds and has had its assets of about 500,000 kroner (67,000 euros, 80,000 dollars) frozen.

Great Damage

The nine-month investigation had caused the aid group to halt its projects to provide schooling, water and hospital supplies to orphans in some of the world's poorest countries.

Pedersen regretted that hundreds of children "have had to break off their schooling" during that period.

"And it's tragic that a charitable organization has been broken due to false rumors and that the most disadvantaged have been deprived of the possibility to get an education and to live."

Pedersen maintained that the damage has been so great on the aid group though it is now able to gain access to its assets.

Since the 9/11 attacks, Washington has been putting pressures on Muslim countries to clamp down on Islamic charities under the pretext that they were channeling funds to terrorists and extremists.

The charities have complained that restrictions were affecting their work to reach out to poor and needy Muslims.

In August, 2003, thousands of Palestinian orphans and destitute families took to the streets to protest freezing the bank accounts of 18 charities suspected of having links with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Saudi Arabia has also begun to close all overseas charities and relief organizations and place their funds and properties under the control of a newly established governmental body.