Yes, folks, pills. Drugs. Illegal drugs.
Tariq Isa, 57, who is palestinian and the former treasurer of the Mosque of the Martyr Izzedine Al-Qassam in Chicago, pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to distributing more than 1.7 million tablets of pseudoephedrine, the raw material of the illegal stimulant methamphetamine. Isa was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in August 2004 after returning from a trip to the Mideast. Isa is the third leader of his mosque, also known as the Chicago Islamic Center, to be criminally charged. Fellow palestinians Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Fariz are on trial in Florida on a 2003 indictment that alleged they financed terrorists in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and were themselves members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group.