LONDON, February 21 (IslamOnline. net & News Agencies) – A UK-based academic accused by the United States of being a supporter of a "foreign terrorist organization" refuted the allegation and dismissed it as "absurd" fabrication.

"I'm not associated with any political organization anywhere," averred Basheer Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, in an interview Friday, February 21, with BBC News Online.

NAfi was one of eight men indicted by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft Thursday, February 20, on charges of links with the Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian resistance group designated a terrorist organization in the US.

The Islamic Jihad, along with Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, battle the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian areas and retaliate their incessant aggressions against innocent and armless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Speaking from his home in a village near Oxford, Nafi said the evidence against him had been "fabricated", asserting he is "just an academic".

"I've been in this country since 1983. It's absolute nonsense."

The Egypt-born academic, allegedly accused of being the British head of the Islamic Jihad, holds an Irish passport.

Nafi worked briefly in America in the mid-1990s and had an "academic involvement" with University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, one of four people arrested Thursday by American authorities on charges of ties with the Islamic Jihad, according to BBC News Online.

Ashcroft said in the 50-count indictment the men were accused of "operating a criminal racketeering enterprise since 1984 that supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad and with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad, conspiracy to provide material support to the group, extortion, perjury and other charges".

"FBI agents have arrested the four defendants who are located in the United States, including the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian," alleged Ashcroft.

The charges the eight as "material supporters of a foreign terrorist organization. They financed, extolled and assisted acts of terror."

Jihad Denies Allegations

The Islamic Jihad Friday denied the charges against the eight Palestinians indicted in the United States and said one of the alleged leaders arrested by the FBI was not even a member of the organization.

The charges announced by Ashcroft against eight suspected leaders of the group, four of whom were arrested, "are false and we reject them," senior Islamic Jihad official Khaled al-Batsh told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Batsh stressed "it is not acceptable to describe the legitimate Jihad (holy war) and resistance of the Palestinian people as terrorism."

The Jihad official underlined that Al-Arian "is not part of the leadership or even a member of the Islamic Jihad.

"His arrest is meant to satisfy the Jewish lobby in Washington and comes against the Arab and Muslim community in Florida who are publicly opposed to any racial and human rights discrimination," he charged.

Batsh asserted that his movement "does not hold a grudge against the American people but opposes the policy of the U.S. administration in support of Israel.