Government lawyers asked a federal judge to throw out a charity's lawsuit seeking to overturn an order freezing its assets Wednesday, alleging the organization had ties to Osama bin Laden. Lawyers for the charity and its co-founder vigorously denied the allegations.

Federal officials claimed in a memorandum that the Global Relief Foundation maintained contacts with a man who had connections to Osama bin Laden, distributed literature that said donations would go toward ammunition and operated within Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Ann Arbor Muslim leader Rabih Haddad co-founded the Islamic charity and has been detained since Dec. 14, the same day federal agents raided GRF's Chicago headquarters. Haddad is facing extradition hearings in an Immigration and Naturalization Service court. Lawyers representing area newspapers and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the ruling that closed the hearings in federal court this week.

Lawyers for the Global Relief Foundation said they didn't believe the government had evidence connecting the charity to terror.

"There's absolutely nothing in those allegations," said Roger Simmons, an attorney for the Global Relief Foundation. He called the memorandum a "large conglomeration of trash."

The government claims the foundation had connections with Wadih el Hage, bin Laden's former secretary. According to Simmons, the government's allegations are based on taped conversations, the contents of which they will not release. He also noted that many people, including the U.S. government, have supported bin Laden in the past.

"(GRF) probably talked to 3,000 people in that time period," Simmons said. "Shame on the government for trying to smear us with that kind of allegation."

A spokesperson for the northern Illinois prosecutor's office declined to comment on the memorandum.

"I'm skeptical about most of what the government is alleging," said Nazih Hassan, vice president of the Muslim Community Association and friend of Rabih Haddad.

"I wouldn't call it evidence," he said.

Ashraf Nubani, one of Haddad's attorneys, said he thought the case would be appealed no matter what the judge decides.

"They didn't have anything ... It's easy to produce organizational ties," Nubani said.

"Just because the area they work in is not politically correct isn't an indicator of any wrongdoing," he said, adding that he thought the organization would be eventually cleared in court.

Simmons, a lawyer for GRF, said the U.S. Patriot Act gave the government the power to seize the organization's assets.

"It's an extremely radical move against anything this government was founded on," Simmons said.