NEW YORK (AP) – A Yemeni sheik and his assistant were convicted Thursday of plotting to funnel money to al-Qaida and Hamas.

The verdict brought an end to a tumultuous case in which the man who was supposed to be the government’s star witness set himself on fire outside the White House.

In a meeting with FBI informants in a German hotel room, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, 56, and 31-year-old Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed were secretly recorded promising to funnel more than $2 million to Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel.

Al-Moayad was also heard boasting that Osama bin Laden had once called him “my sheik.”