In the rich history of NBA big men finding themselves associated with extremist groups —- Bill Walton and the S.L.A., Shawn Bradley and the Mormon Church — Hawkeem Olajuwon finds himself accused of unwittingly funding terrorists groups. From the Associated Press :

A mosque established and funded by basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon gave more than $80,000 to charities the government later determined to be fronts for the terror groups al-Qaida and Hamas, according to financial records obtained by The Associated Press.

Olajuwon told the AP he had not known of any links to terrorism when the donations were made, prior to the government’s crackdown on the groups, and would not have given the money if he had known.

“There is no way you can go back in time,” Olajuwon said in a telephone interview from Jordan, where he is studying Arabic. “After the fact, now they have the list of organizations that are banned by the government.”

The Olajuwon-founded Islamic Da’Wah Center in Houston gave more than $60,000 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002 to the Islamic African Relief Agency, the center’s tax records show.

The government shut down the relief agency in October, saying it gave money and other support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

But the agency and its possible ties to terrorism had been in news stories years earlier, before Olajuwon’s contributions:

The U.S. Agency for International Development cut off two government grants to the Islamic African Relief Agency in 1999, saying funding the group “would not be in the national interest of the United States.”

A former fund-raiser for the relief agency, Ziyad Khaleel, was named in a federal trial in 2001 as the man who bought a satellite telephone that bin Laden used to plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Numerous news organizations reported shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks that the relief agency was among more than two dozen Islamic charities under scrutiny for possible terrorist ties.

Olajuwon also participated in a 1999 celebrity bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which the U.S. government shut down in 2001, accusing it of sending money to Hamas. The Islamic Da’Wah Center gave more than $2,000 to the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation in 2000, according to its tax returns.

At the time, Olajuwon was vice president of the mosque — which was named after him — and provided more than three-quarters of its money. Olajuwon heads the separate foundation that now controls the Islamic Da’Wah Center.

The Holy Land Foundation and several leaders are awaiting trial on criminal charges of supporting terrorism — charges they deny. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the group’s 2002 lawsuit challenging its terrorist designation, ruling federal officials had “ample evidence” of financial support for Hamas.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said in July that an indictment against several officers was “neither a reflection on the well-meaning people who may have donated funds to the foundation, nor is it a reflection on the Muslim faith and its adherents.”

In 2000, the year after Olajuwon participated in the Dallas bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Da’Wah Center gave the group $2,430, tax records show. That money was a tiny fraction of the $13 million the foundation raised that year.

Olajuwon said the bowling tournament was one of many charitable events he has attended.

“I get all sorts of requests from charitable organizations,” Olajuwon said. “It was a bunch of kids and I gave them autographs.”