NEW YORK, July 28: A Yemeni man arrested after a sting operation by the Unites States Federal Bureau of Investigation in Germany in 2003 was sentenced to 75 years in prison on Thursday for conspiring to support and fund Al Qaeda and Hamas. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan Al Moayad, 56, was sentenced to 75 years in prison and fined $1.25 million in a federal court in Brooklyn. For each of five counts, he received 15-year sentences, each to be served consecutively.

On March 10, after a five-week trial, a federal jury found Al Moayad and his aide, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, guilty of conspiring to provide material support and resources to Al Qaeda between October 1999 and January 2003, and to Hamas between October 1997 and January 2003.

Al Moayad was acquitted on a separate count of providing such support to Al Qaeda, but was found guilty of providing material support and resources to Hamas.

Four days of videotaped meetings between the defendants and FBI undercover agents in a Frankfurt hotel in January 2003 formed the crux of the government’s case. In one meeting they were recorded promising more than $2 million to Hamas.

Prosecutors had argued the pair were involved in a long-running effort to funnel cash to the groups. Al Moayad was arrested in Germany in 2003 after telling a federal agent posing as an American businessman that he would help him funnel money to militants, prosecutors said. He was later extradited to the United States. Sentencing of Mr Zayed was delayed until September.—-Reuters.