NY man sentenced to 5 years for aiding Hezbollah

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - A Pakistani man was sentenced in New York to more than five and a half years in prison on Thursday for broadcasting the Hezbollah television channel Al Manar and selling it to U.S. customers.

In one of U.S. prosecutors' more unusual terrorism cases, Javed Iqbal, a 45-year-old Pakistani citizen living in New York, was charged with supporting Hezbollah in 2006. He pleaded guilty to the charges in December.

"I did not make a profit off of broadcasting Al Manar and it cost me my life," Iqbal's lawyer, Joshua Dratel, read out in a prepared statement on behalf of Iqbal which included an apology to the judge before he was sentenced to 69 months.

"I am a human being and human beings make mistakes," Dratel said on behalf of Iqbal, who owned a small satellite television company, HDTV Ltd.

The U.S. Treasury branded Al Manar a terrorist organization in March 2006, saying it supported Hezbollah's fund-raising and recruitment activities.

Prosecutors said Iqbal, who moved to the United States more than 26 years ago, provided transmission services to the Beirut-based channel in return for payment between 2005 and 2006 and then sold the channel to U.S. customers.

"He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah's man in New York City," prosecutor Eric Snyder said during the sentencing hearing, adding Hezbollah used the channel to recruit new members.

But Iqbal's defense lawyer Joshua Dratel said Iqbal had no ideological support for Hezbollah and sold the channel to make money as part of his satellite television business that also included Christian channels and adult entertainment.