American Civilian Victim of US Foreign Policy

Shakir Hamoodi, a Columbia [Missouri] business owner imprisoned for sending money to his family in Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions, was released Tuesday from the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., to serve the remainder of his sentence in a halfway house and on home arrest.

Hamoodi, a nuclear scientist once employed by the University of Missouri and owner of World Harvest Foods, was sentenced in 2012 to three years in federal prison for sending more than $200,000 to family, friends and charities from 1991 to 2003. Investigators found no evidence he was aiding the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein through his contributions, which he told the court were to provide for basic needs of family members.

[...]

“My uncle was a surgeon [in Iraq] who made $2 a month and could not even buy a box of eggs,” said Owais Abdul-Kafi, Hamoodi’s son, in an interview Friday. “They were suffering and starving.”

  Columbia Tribune

I’m very happy for Mr. Hamoodi and his family, but I am much more disgusted with the US “justice” system and all who participated (indirectly, that being the entire voting-age citizenry of the US) in the outrage of this treatment of a decent and caring man.

I first met Mr. Hamoodi in his import store where I bought wonderful cheeses, and then on an early protest march against the Iraq invasion where he begged us all to try to understand what our bombs would do to innocent people, including his family in Iraq. All who engaged in the wrath of the 9/11ers, and those who participated in his trial and conviction are a disgrace to humanity.

And, to add insult to injury…

Hamoodi, 62, is at Reality House in Columbia and has a final release date of April 7, 2015. Federal release rules require him to seek work until his final release but he is not allowed to work at his business.

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Prior to his sentencing, friends and supporters urged that Hamoodi be put on probation. Since his incarceration, petitions seeking a commutation have been presented to the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House with no results.

“We are very thankful for the community of Columbia,” Abdul-Kafi wrote. “They have stood with our family through this whole process.”

[...]

“He is a classic good man,” [Columbia attorney Craig] Van Matre said. “He is compassionate. He is intelligent. He is caring. He’s a leader of the Muslim community and he is charitable to the extreme. He is an adherent to the best aspects of the Muslim religion and he just didn’t deserve this.”

No, he did not. He does not.

h/t Jean