COPENHAGEN, December 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Danish Muslim charity on Wednesday, December 7, hit out at terror funding charges leveled by the government, saying they were "unfounded" and "politically motivated."

"My client insists that the collected money came from small individual donations for buying classroom material for Palestinian schoolchildren, and this has nothing to do with terrorism," Bjoern Elmquist, the attorney of the Al-Aqsa Association chief Rachid Issa, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"One of the best ways of uprooting terrorism is through education. The more children are educated the less they are tempted by fanaticism," he added.

The identity of the other defendant was not disclosed beyond that he is the group's treasurer.

The government indicted the group with raising funds for "terrorist" organizations.

"Justice Minister Lene Espersen has today accepted the national prosecutor's request to file charges against two members of the Al-Aqsa association in Denmark and the association itself for ... financing terror," the Justice Ministry said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

The ministry said an investigation launched in 2002 showed the two Al-Aqsa members had collected money in Denmark and transferred it to what it said "Middle Eastern organizations which are part of or have connections to the terror organization Hamas".

The trial is expected to begin in a Copenhagen court in the near future.

The Danish Al-Aqsa Association was founded in 1999, taking its name Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

It has repeatedly denied any links to terrorism, saying it supports orphans in Palestine.

The move marks the first time that an organization and its members have been charged under new anti-terror legislation adopted by Denmark in 2002.

In late 2002, Danish police confiscated between 250,000 and 1.2 million Danish krones (39,000 and 189,000 dollars, 34,000 and 161,000 euros) from Al-Aqsa's bank account in Copenhagen on suspicion that the cash was destined to finance terrorist operations in the Middle East.

Since the 9/11 attacks, many European, and even Islamic, countries followed in American footsteps, clamping down on 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 the poor and needy.

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