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June 3, 3008
Former head of Islamic charity freed
In Boston, Samir Al-Monla, a former leader of a defunct Islamic charity, Massachusetts Care International Inc., was freed on June 3, 2008 when US District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV set aside several verdicts of conspiring to defraud the United States and of scheming to conceal the origins of the tax-exempt charity.
Now defunct, Care International Inc., described its mission as helping war orphans, widows and refugees in Muslim nations. But prosecutors said the organization also distributed a newsletter promoting jihad and supported Muslim militants involved in armed conflicts around the world.
Judge Dennis Saylor threw out his convictions and ordered his immediate release.
The Judge also set the stage to soon release another official from the group, after ruling that a jury should not have convicted them in January of most of the tax-related crimes for which they were tried.
Saylor acquitted Emadeddin Muntasser, 44, who owns Logan Furniture, of identical charges, but sustained his conviction for making a false statement to the FBI about having visited Afghanistan.
However, federal sentencing guidelines call for a maximum of six months in prison for that crime, said Muntasser's lawyers, and the founder of Care International has spent almost that long at a federal detention facility in Rhode Island since the Jan. 11 verdict. That makes it likely he will be freed within days, his lawyers said.
Saylor ruled that the federal prosecutors failed to prove that the two defendants schemed to deceive the IRS about Care International's activities, even if they withheld information from other federal authorities.
He pointed out that much of the government's evidence against the two was flimsy or cobbled together with flawed reasoning.
Saylor also dismissed a conspiracy conviction against the one-time treasurer of the group, Muhamed Mubayyid, 43, of Shrewsbury, but declined to overturn his convictions for five other offenses involving filing false tax returns.
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, who had hailed the Jan. 11 convictions as a blow against those who abuse tax laws to support extremist groups, said he expects to seek permission from the US solicitor general's office to appeal the ruling.
Saylor's ruling was a significant setback to the Justice Department and Sullivan. The US attorney issued a statement saying his prosecutors "respectfully disagree" with Saylor and expect to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Muntasser is a Libyan national who has lived in the United States most of his life. Mubayyid is an Australian citizen of Lebanese descent. Monla is a US citizen of Lebanese descent.
The three men were not charged with financing terrorist groups, but rather with failing to tell the IRS that Care International used some of its tax-exempt donations to publish the newsletter and other writings that allegedly favored a holy war.
Defense lawyers presented evidence at trial that Care International also sent money to Muslim widows and orphans and victims of disasters worldwide. They urged jurors not to be swayed by unpopular views.
After deliberating nearly 60 hours over nine days, jurors found that the three men concealed that Care International was an outgrowth of the Boston branch of the Al Kifah Refugee Center, which disbanded after members of the Al Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., were linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.
Saylor forbade references to the 9/11 attacks or to Osama bin Laden during the trial. (Boston Globe/AP)
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