ALBANY, New York (AP) – Two mosque leaders arrested on terror-related charges were described by relatives and friends as peaceful family men who came to the United States for freedom and opportunity.

The portrayals of Yassin Aref, the 34 year-old imam of Masjid As-Salam mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, a 49 year-old mosque co-founder, differed from those offered by law enforcement officials yesterday after the two were arrested at their homes.

Court papers accused the men of being involved in an alleged plot to purchase a shoulder-fired missile to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador in New York.

Between tears, Hossain’s wife, Mossamat, said her husband is a businessman, not a terrorist. “It’s totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie,” she said.

Hossain, a father of five, came from Bangladesh in 1985. After years of washing dishes and doing other kitchen work, he bought a pizzeria in 1994, according to a profile published this summer by the Times-Union of Albany. The Little Italy pizzeria and the mosque are in a modest neighbourhood of rowhouses and storefronts.

“I’m proud to be an American,” he told the newspaper. “When I was in high school in Bangladesh, I looked at a map of America and I dreamed of coming to this great land.”

Aref is a native of Kurdistan and came to the United States three years ago from Syria, where he was a student, said his wife, Zuhor Jalal. Aref drives an ambulance besides his duties at the mosque.

“We come for freedom and job,” Jalal said.

Mosque members described their imam as a gentle man.

“The only reason we were created was to worship God, not to blow things up, not to buy things for terrorists,” trustee Rashid Abdul Haqq Hamzah said.

Two of Hossain’s neighbours said that he spoke enthusiastically about his religion, but not about politics.

Cleo Junco said Hossain gave his son a Koran after the September 11 attacks to try to show the boy that Islam was not a belligerent religion. Jacob McClenahan said he talked often about his faith, but “I didn’t think I had any reason to suspect him of being anything but annoying.”