Accused Hamas leader denies terror charges

"This is election campaigning," Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, told The Associated Press in Damascus on Friday. "They (US officials) want to say to the American public that they are succeeding in fighting terrorism.

"Every week they come up with a new case before the American public, but these (the cases) are drawn from files that are tens of years old," he said.

Speaking by telephone from Damascus, where he has been living for several years, Abu Marzook said he had "nothing to do with" the accusations.

In Washington on Friday, US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that Abu Marzook, Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, who lives in Alexandria, Va., and Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah of Chicago, were indicted for their roles in 15-year racketeering conspiracy in the United States and abroad.