KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 7 (UPI) -- A former U.S. congressman and U.N. envoy Mark Deli Siljander pleaded guilty Wednesday to obstruction of justice, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The former Michigan Republican U.S. House member also pleaded guilty in Kansas City, Mo., to acting as a foreign agent in his work for an Islamic charity with ties to international terrorism.
The department said Siljander, 59, of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty to one count in an Oct. 21, 2008, indictment and an additional count filed Wednesday involving the Islamic American Relief Agency of Columbia, Mo.
A co-defendant, Abdel Azim el-Siddig of Chicago, is a former IARA fundraiser who also pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring with Siljander and others to hire the former congressman to lobby for the charity's removal from a Senate Finance Committee list of charities suspected of terror connections. The pleas included a concession that Siljander's advocacy was concealed and he was not registered as a foreign agent, the department said.
The department said Siljander operated a Washington consulting business called Global Strategies Inc., while IARA served as the U.S. office of an international organization headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan.
The U.S. Treasury Department identified IARA in October 2004 as a designated global terrorist organization for the support its international offices provided to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Taliban, the department said.
Siljander faces as long as 15 years in prison without parole, plus a fine of as much as $500,000; el-Siddig is facing a possible five years in without parole, plus a fine of as much as $250,000. Sentencing will be scheduled after pre-sentence investigations, the department said.
