A former Bush administration official has been sued for libel by a U.S.-based Islamic charity for alleging in a book that the organization has helped fund Middle East terrorists.
The lawsuit -- filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Kids in Need of Development, Education and Relief and its chairwoman, Dr. Laila Al-Marayati of Los Angeles -- accuses Matthew Levitt of falsely linking the charity to extremists. It also names Yale University Press and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as defendants for their role in publishing the book last year.
Levitt, deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department until earlier this year, has been a government witness in several federal terrorism cases and is a senior fellow at the institute.
Spokespeople for the defendants said the allegations were without merit.
The Dallas-based charity, known as KinderUSA, was founded five years ago by a group of physicians and humanitarian relief workers with the goal of bringing educational, health and rehabilitation programs into war zones and areas of disaster, according to its lawsuit and website. To date, it has received and distributed about $4 million to $5 million overseas.
The lawsuit, filed April 26, contends that Levitt's book, "Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad," inaccurately portrays the organization as an accomplice to terrorism, suggesting that it has funded Hamas and has connections to Al Qaeda.
In one passage cited in the lawsuit, Levitt links KinderUSA to another Texas-based charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which has been closed by the federal government and is now fighting government allegations in Dallas that it is connected to Hamas.
"Even after the closure of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, other U.S.-based charities continue to fund Hamas," the book says. "One organization that has appeared to rise out of the ashes of the [Holy Land Foundation] is KinderUSA."
In court documents, Levitt has been listed as a potential government witness in the Holy Land trial, which is to begin in July.
Levitt's book also states -- falsely, the lawsuit alleges -- that "the formation of KinderUSA highlights an increasingly common trend: banned charities continuing to operate by incorporating under new names in response to designation as terrorist entities or in an effort to evade attention. This trend is also seen with groups raising money for Al Qaeda."
