Chicago ? An Islamic charity and its director were charged with perjury Tuesday and accused by the FBI of supporting terrorists who tried to obtain nuclear weapons for Osama bin Laden and plotted to assassinate the pope.

Federal agents said the Benevolence International Foundation had links to bin Laden going back decades and moved sizable amounts of cash for his al-Qaida terrorist network during the 1990s. As recently as 2000, the FBI said, the foundation forwarded $685,000 to Islamic guerillas trained by bin Laden’s group to fight Russians in Chechnya.

The FBI also said that members of al-Qaida have held positions within the charity, and that a man who tried to obtain uranium for bin Laden listed the charity’s Illinois address as his home.

“This complaint alleges Benevolence International Foundation was supporting violence secretly,” U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said.

Enaam M. Arnaout, the head of the charity based in suburban Palos Hills, was arrested at his home Tuesday and described by authorities as a trusted acquaintance of bin Laden. The 39-year-old Syrian-born naturalized American was ordered held for a hearing May 7.

The foundation is one of two Chicago-area Islamic charities whose assets were frozen Dec. 14 on suspicion of supporting terrorism. Federal agents also raided their offices that day. The co-founder of Global Relief Foundation, the other organization, is being held on an immigration charge.

Both groups have sued the government, denying they have anything to do with terrorism and asking that their assets be released. Arnaout and Benevolence International were charged Tuesday with lying under oath in that case when they said the foundation doesn’t fund terrorism or military activity.

Federal investigators have been watching Benevolence International for years. An FBI affidavit said a search of the group’s trash in 1999 turned up a clipping from a Seattle newspaper focusing on the danger of a smallpox epidemic.

Brochures for Benevolence International describe it as a humanitarian organization “dedicated to helping those afflicted by wars and natural disasters” in Afghanistan and other countries. IRS reports show that it received $3.3 million in contributions for the year ending April 2000.

The FBI affidavit said the charity was founded in the 1980s by Saudi sheik Adil Abdul Galil Batargy, a bin Laden associate, and that control of the group was later given to Arnaout.