Treasury Dept. slaps sanctions on accused terror leader who spoke at Columbia: ‘Masquerade as charitable actors’

The Treasury Department on Tuesday slapped sanctions against an accused terror leader — who was a featured speaker at a Columbia University seminar in April.

The Treasury also issued sanctions against a “sham charity” that took left-wing US donors’ money and funded the speaker’s Palestinian terror group.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control halted all funding to the group, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, as part of a joint action with the Canadian government.

The Vancouver-based nonprofit runs an international network of affiliates that have fundraised for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the US State Department designated as a terror group in 1997.

The Treasury also issued sanctions against Canadian national Khaled Barakat, a senior PFLP leader who was a featured speaker at a Columbia University virtual “Resistance 101” seminar in April at the invitation of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

Barakat’s wife, Charlotte Kates, who serves as the international coordinator of Samidoun, told members of Columbia’s Apartheid Divest Group, “There is nothing wrong with being a Hamas fighter.”

Bradley Smith, acting under secretary of the Treasury’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence division, said in a statement, “Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups.

“The United States, together with Canada and our like-minded partners, will continue to disrupt those who seek to finance the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.”

PFLP operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of more than 1,200 people in Israel — mainly civilians and including 46 Americans — through its military wing, the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.

Israel designated Samidoun as a foreign terror group in 2021.

Last year, major US credit-card companies including Mastercard and Visa banned the Samidoun from using payment processing services after the Washington Examiner exposed how left-wing dark money was flowing through the organization to the PFLP.

Arabella Advisors, the dark money behemoth, manages a vast network of nonprofits that shield donors’ identities while steering their contributions to an array of left-wing causes.

The for-profit firm was founded by ex-Clinton administration official Eric Kessler in 2005 and runs thanks to the largesse of billionaires such as George Soros and Pierre Omidyar, the New York Times has reported.

Arabella’s Windward Fund and New Venture Fund contributed $473,000 to one of Samidoun’s fiscal sponsors, the Alliance for Global Justice, tax filings from 2020 and 2021 show.

That funding was set aside for grants to help domestic clean-energy projects, a rep for the funds previously said, while adding that the money has since been discontinued and will not be provided in the future.

The Alliance for Global Justice itself raked in more than $10.7 million in revenue in fiscal year 2022-2023, according to watchdog group NGO Monitor. It spent more than $8.9 million of the money.

Soros’ Open Society Foundation also sent $250,000 to the group in 2020, which was earmarked “to catalyze Black communities into the global movement for climate justice.”

The House Ways and Means Committee flagged the Alliance for Global Justice for potential ties to terror last month — and demanded that the IRS revoke the Tucson, Arizona-based organization’s tax-exempt charity status, The Post first reported.

A Columbia University spokeswoman Tuesday directed The Post to a recent statement by interim President Katrina Armstrong, the provost and the Executive Committee of the University Senate saying all of them “stand against any calls for violence.”

Reps for the group and Samidoun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.