Owner of market moves to reopen

The owner of a Rainier Valley market shut down by the U.S. Treasury Department in a raid last week on a money exchange has taken the first step to recover his seized property and, he hopes, re-open his store.

Abdelinesir Ali insists government agents made a mistake when they closed the Maka Mini-Mart because the Barakat Money Exchange leased space inside.

"I think they didn't know," Ali said yesterday, sitting in the office of the neighboring Oowlo Travel Agency. "I'm very confused."

The money exchange, a so-called "hawala," was used by hundreds in Seattle's Somali community to transfer money to their relatives in Africa. Last Wednesday, the Bush administration named Barakat's parent company, Al Barakaat, a "specially designated global terrorist" and shut the operation down, saying it was being used to funnel money to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida terrorist network.

U.S. Customs agents, acting at the behest of the Office of Foreign Asset Control — which enforces U.S. trade sanctions — last Wednesday closed the Maka market and seized everything from its shelves. U.S. Treasury officials confirmed that perishable goods, including halal meats, specially handled to comply with Islamic customs, were thrown out.

However, other items, including refrigerators, delicatessen equipment such as meat slicers and coffee makers, are being stored and could be returned to Ali if he can prove he has no connection with the Barakat exchange or terrorism. A Treasury official confirmed Ali took the first step toward that by writing a letter to the Office of Foreign Asset Control yesterday.

"I can prove I have nothing to do with this," said Ali, who said he rented a small corner of his store to Hassan Farrah, the registered owner of the Barakat Money Exchange. "His business has a different license, different accounts. Even different phone number."

Outrage followed the closure of the small, whitewashed grocery store on Rainier Avenue South, and the operation that allowed many in Seattle's Somali community to wire money to their relatives.

Robert Nichols, a spokesman at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., said seizures by the Office of Foreign Asset Control are not unusual — but last week's raids on the five hawalas in four states were atypical, in that "usually, this is all done electronically involving bank accounts and the like."

The government regularly seizes houses, cars and cash from suspected criminals. "What differs here is that the agents were acting on order of the president, who determined that these businesses were funding global terrorism" in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nichols said.

"I think they didn't know it was two businesses," Ali said yesterday, "I was caught up."