Florida Men Accused of Supporting Pakistani Taliban

MIAMI — Six people, including two imams at South Florida mosques, have been indicted on federal charges of providing financial support and encouraging violence by the Pakistani Taliban, the United States attorney here announced Saturday.

The indictment, which was handed up on Thursday, charged Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, the imam at the Miami Mosque (also known as the Flagler Mosque), the oldest mosque in Miami. The indictment also charged two of the imam’s sons: Izhar Khan, 24, the imam at the Jamaat Al-Mumineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla.; and Irfan Khan, 37, of North Lauderdale, Fla. All three men are American citizens who are originally from Pakistan, the authorities said.

The four-count indictment charges the Khans, and three others living in Pakistan, with conspiring to provide material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas, as well as with conspiring to provide about $45,000 in financial support to the Pakistani Taliban from 2008 to 2010.

“Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace,” Wilfredo A. Ferrer, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement. “Instead, as today’s charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming.”

Hafiz and Izhar Khan are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Monday afternoon. Irfan Khan will be arraigned in Los Angeles on Monday. Each of the four counts in the indictment carries a maximum 15-year prison term.

Prosecutors said the indictment did not charge the mosques. They added that the defendants were charged “based on their provision of material support to terrorism, not on their religious beliefs or teachings.”

The Muslim Communities Association of South Florida announced that Hafiz Khan had been suspended indefinitely from his mosque.

“Our organizations, together through the Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organizations, has been working with the U.S. attorney’s office and the Miami F.B.I. office,” the association said in a statement released Saturday afternoon, “and appreciate the efforts of law enforcement to root out potential sources and supporters of terrorism.”

“We stand together with the U.S. attorney, Wilfredo Ferrer, and the men and women of the F.B.I., and have been and will be cooperating with law enforcement to our fullest ability,” the Muslim association added.

The charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban but not actually carrying out operations are the most common types of terrorism prosecutions that American authorities have pursued since the Sept. 11 attacks. Of the 50 top terrorism cases since 9/11, about 70 percent have involved financing or other support to terrorist groups, according to the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law.

The Pakistani Taliban is closely allied with Al Qaeda and is responsible for attacks against Pakistani police and military targets in recent years. Pakistani authorities believe that a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan on Friday that killed more than 80 cadets from a government paramilitary force.

The indictment comes at a tense moment in relations between the United States and Pakistan after Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid by the Navy Seals on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

On Saturday, the Pakistani Parliament condemned the raid as a “unilateral action” and “a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” and demanded a formal review of the country’s relationship with the United States.

F.B.I. agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar in South Florida on Saturday, the authorities said. Irfan Khan was arrested in Los Angeles, they said.

Lizette Alvarez contributed reporting from Miami, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

Florida Legislature Votes to Ease Rules on Development

Republican leaders hailed the measures as a step toward modernizing Florida’s growth management rules and reducing duplicative bureaucratic regulations. The bills were a priority for the Republican governor, Rick Scott, and Republican legislative leaders who said they would create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Mr. Scott is expected in the next two weeks to sign the package of bills, one of several business-friendly proposals that cleared the Legislature. Lawmakers also provided $30 million in tax breaks to 15,000 businesses, limited lawsuits against businesses, paved the way for prison privatization and reduced unemployment compensation.

But environmentalists and Senate Democrats called the legislation approved last week a throwback to the 1970s and early ’80s, when tracts of land in Florida were gobbled up by developers who put up strip shopping malls, houses and office buildings with no concern for local communities. Developers also encroached on sensitive land, including Everglades National Park.

“It was the worst session for the environment I have seen in 20 years,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida. “We saw more bad bills proposed and more bad bills passed than we have ever seen before. Any claim that a bill would increase jobs by decreasing regulation was accepted on its face with no consideration given to the financial consequences or the environmental consequences of the proposal.”

The Legislature significantly reduced money for the Everglades, mostly by cutting the budget of the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees restoration. The Everglades stands to lose $120 million from a decrease in the district’s budget if the bill becomes law, Mr. Draper said. Asserting that such a cut would cause profound harm to restoration efforts, Audubon of Florida has asked Mr. Scott to veto the legislation.

In its last days, the Legislature also approved a proposal that would make it more difficult for the public to challenge development and environmental permits. Developers would no longer have to prove a project is safe. Instead, the public would have to prove that a project would bring harm, a shift that environmentalists say would make it much more arduous to stop sensitive projects like hazardous waste sites and nuclear power plants.

State Senator Michael S. Bennett, a Republican from Bradenton who is a developer and the bill’s sponsor, said current law had slowed the permit process considerably, backing it up two or three years and impeding business growth. Businesses, Mr. Bennett said, were choosing other states because of that.

“Any person from the Keys can challenge somebody from the Panhandle and not have any burden of proof,” Mr. Bennett said on the floor last week.

The growth management bill, which was wrapped into the must-pass budget bill at the tail end of the session early Saturday morning, would undo a central piece of a landmark 1985 law that required builders to help pay for schools, roads, parks, sewers and other infrastructure costs. At the time, Florida residents were angered by having to pay the long-term cost of widespread new development while builders pocketed the profits.

The law would leave the decision about whether developers should pay impact fees to local governments. It also would allow cities and counties to make changes to their growth plans without state permission.

Republican lawmakers said the current requirements are outdated and that communities are much better equipped to oversee development than they were 25 years ago. Local communities, not the state, they said, know best what they need to maintain their neighborhoods.

Environmental groups and Democratic critics said Florida’s corruption-spackled past had proved that local officials did not always make the right choices.

“The reasons we have a growth management law is to allow the state to check against out of control local officials,” Mr. Draper said. “Florida has a history of corruption and bribery among local officials. We have now gone back 30 years and said we will trust our county commissioners to make these decisions. It is predictable that bad things will happen.”

And, Democrats added, Florida needs to increase development about as much as it needs to increase the mosquito population. It was overdevelopment that helped lead to the housing crash, which has now left many commercial buildings and houses sitting empty, they say.

“One reason we have a problem is we have a glut in the market,” said State Senator Nan H. Rich, the Senate Democratic leader, who lives in Broward County. “We don’t need more development and urban sprawl.”

Florida Legislature Votes to Ease Rules on Development

Republican leaders hailed the measures as a step toward modernizing Florida’s growth management rules and reducing duplicative bureaucratic regulations. The bills were a priority for the Republican governor, Rick Scott, and Republican legislative leaders who said they would create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Mr. Scott is expected in the next two weeks to sign the package of bills, one of several business-friendly proposals that cleared the Legislature. Lawmakers also provided $30 million in tax breaks to 15,000 businesses, limited lawsuits against businesses, paved the way for prison privatization and reduced unemployment compensation.

But environmentalists and Senate Democrats called the legislation approved last week a throwback to the 1970s and early ’80s, when tracts of land in Florida were gobbled up by developers who put up strip shopping malls, houses and office buildings with no concern for local communities. Developers also encroached on sensitive land, including Everglades National Park.

“It was the worst session for the environment I have seen in 20 years,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida. “We saw more bad bills proposed and more bad bills passed than we have ever seen before. Any claim that a bill would increase jobs by decreasing regulation was accepted on its face with no consideration given to the financial consequences or the environmental consequences of the proposal.”

The Legislature significantly reduced money for the Everglades, mostly by cutting the budget of the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees restoration. The Everglades stands to lose $120 million from a decrease in the district’s budget if the bill becomes law, Mr. Draper said. Asserting that such a cut would cause profound harm to restoration efforts, Audubon of Florida has asked Mr. Scott to veto the legislation.

In its last days, the Legislature also approved a proposal that would make it more difficult for the public to challenge development and environmental permits. Developers would no longer have to prove a project is safe. Instead, the public would have to prove that a project would bring harm, a shift that environmentalists say would make it much more arduous to stop sensitive projects like hazardous waste sites and nuclear power plants.

State Senator Michael S. Bennett, a Republican from Bradenton who is a developer and the bill’s sponsor, said current law had slowed the permit process considerably, backing it up two or three years and impeding business growth. Businesses, Mr. Bennett said, were choosing other states because of that.

“Any person from the Keys can challenge somebody from the Panhandle and not have any burden of proof,” Mr. Bennett said on the floor last week.

The growth management bill, which was wrapped into the must-pass budget bill at the tail end of the session early Saturday morning, would undo a central piece of a landmark 1985 law that required builders to help pay for schools, roads, parks, sewers and other infrastructure costs. At the time, Florida residents were angered by having to pay the long-term cost of widespread new development while builders pocketed the profits.

The law would leave the decision about whether developers should pay impact fees to local governments. It also would allow cities and counties to make changes to their growth plans without state permission.

Republican lawmakers said the current requirements are outdated and that communities are much better equipped to oversee development than they were 25 years ago. Local communities, not the state, they said, know best what they need to maintain their neighborhoods.

Environmental groups and Democratic critics said Florida’s corruption-spackled past had proved that local officials did not always make the right choices.

“The reasons we have a growth management law is to allow the state to check against out of control local officials,” Mr. Draper said. “Florida has a history of corruption and bribery among local officials. We have now gone back 30 years and said we will trust our county commissioners to make these decisions. It is predictable that bad things will happen.”

And, Democrats added, Florida needs to increase development about as much as it needs to increase the mosquito population. It was overdevelopment that helped lead to the housing crash, which has now left many commercial buildings and houses sitting empty, they say.

“One reason we have a problem is we have a glut in the market,” said State Senator Nan H. Rich, the Senate Democratic leader, who lives in Broward County. “We don’t need more development and urban sprawl.”