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Alleged Hezbollah Financier Extradited to US on Sanctions Evasion Charges

Hezbollah fighters hold their group flags, as they parade during a rally to mark Jerusalem day, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 14, 2023. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters hold their group flags, as they parade during a rally to mark Jerusalem day, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 14, 2023. (AP)
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Alleged Hezbollah Financier Extradited to US on Sanctions Evasion Charges

Hezbollah fighters hold their group flags, as they parade during a rally to mark Jerusalem day, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 14, 2023. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters hold their group flags, as they parade during a rally to mark Jerusalem day, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 14, 2023. (AP)

A dual Lebanese-Belgian citizen accused by the United States of financing Lebanon's Hezbollah has been extradited from Romania and faced sanctions evasion and money laundering charges on Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said.

Mohammad Bazzi, who Washington says has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah, was arrested in February on charges of covertly selling real estate he owned in Michigan and transferring the funds abroad, violating US sanctions laws.

Bazzi was extradited on Tuesday, and pleaded not guilty in a Wednesday court hearing before US Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo, according to a spokesman for the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn. He was ordered detained pending trial.

The US Treasury Department placed Bazzi, 58, on its sanctions list in 2018 over his alleged ties to Hezbollah, which Washington considers a terrorist organization.

Lawyers for Bazzi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn last week charged another alleged Hezbollah financier, Nazem Ahmad, with evading US sanctions by exporting hundreds of millions of dollars of diamonds and art.

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Iraqi Couple Charged in Germany with Keeping, Abusing Yazidi Girls as Slaves

A forest with frozen trees is pictured in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
A forest with frozen trees is pictured in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
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Iraqi Couple Charged in Germany with Keeping, Abusing Yazidi Girls as Slaves

A forest with frozen trees is pictured in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
A forest with frozen trees is pictured in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Germany's federal prosecutor on Monday charged an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture and war crimes, alleging they kept two young Yazidi girls as slaves and sexually and physically abused them.
The man and the woman, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested in Bavaria in April.
The were members of ISIS in Iraq and Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, the prosecutor said in a statement. They allegedly kept a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave starting in late 2015, and a 12-year-old from October 2017.
Prosecutors alleged that the man raped both girls repeatedly and that the woman prepared the room and put makeup on one of the girls, The Associated Press reported.
The couple also exerted “harsh physical violence” on the girls, who were prevented from practicing their own religion and coerced into household work and childcare, prosecutors said.
The man on one occasion allegedly hit the older girl with a broomstick.

The woman is accused of scalding the younger girl’s hand with hot water and both children were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg for half an hour as punishment.
Before they left Syria in November 2017, the suspects handed the girls over to other members of ISIS, the prosecutor's statement said.
“All of this served the organization’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” the statement added.