|
AMP Report - November 26, 2008
The Holy Land Foundation retrial ends with
conviction of its five former officials
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
After a series of legal twists, secret evidence and questionable witness of Israeli intelligence agents, the Holy Land Foundation, once a leading American Muslim charitable organization and five of its former officials were convicted on November 24 on criminal charges related to humanitarian aid given to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. The defendants said they were engaged in legitimate relief work, while the government claimed that work benefited terrorists.
During the trial, defense attorneys accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence. But jurors agreed with the government's contention that at least $12 million raised in the U.S. had been illegally funneled to Hamas after that organization was banned as a terrorist group by the federal government in 1995.
Prosecutors spent more time in the second trial explaining the complexities of the case and painting a clearer picture of the money trail. Following the mistrial, prosecutors streamlined their case and eliminated almost 100 charges against the remaining defendants.
The first trial of the Holy Land Foundation ended in a mistrial on October 22, 2007 when the jurors returned no convictions against any of the five former leaders of the Holy Land. Mohammad El-Mezain, the Holy Land's original chairman, was acquitted on most of the counts by a unanimous jury after 19 days of deliberations.
While prosecutors said the foundation raised money for Hamas they did not accuse the charity of directly financing or being involved in "terrorist" activity. Prosecutors said the charity was spreading Hamas' ideology by funding schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by the group in the Palestinian territories, and permitting it to divert funds to the activities of fighters.
Former chairman of the Holy Land, Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu-Baker, Holy Land's chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud. Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Holy Land itself was convicted of all 32 counts. It will also be required to forfeit about $12.4 million to the government.
"Today's verdicts are important milestones in America's efforts against financiers of terrorism," Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement. Mr. Rowan added that the prosecution "demonstrates our resolve to ensure that humanitarian relief efforts are not used as a mechanism to disguise and enable support for terrorist groups."
Nancy Hollander, a lawyer from Albuquerque who represented Mr. Abu-Baker, said the defendants would appeal based on a number of issues, including the anonymous testimony of an expert, which she said was a first. “Our clients were not even allowed to review their own statements because they were classified — statements that they made over the course of many years that the government wiretapped,” Ms. Hollander said. “They were not allowed to go back and review them. There were statements from alleged co-conspirators that included handwritten notes. Nobody knew who wrote them; nobody knew when they were written. There are a plethora of issues.”
Lydia Gonzalez of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the defendants did not get a fair trial. "When you're supposed to be able to face your accusers fully and against secret evidence and secret witness, I think that leads to reasonable doubt."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the government’s reworked case against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was based on fear-mongering. A CAIR statement said: “We believe this case was based more on fear-mongering than on the facts. It is particularly troubling that the government chose to use testimony from an anonymous witness, which deprives the defendants of their full right to confront their accusers. We expect the defendants to appeal this verdict and believe that it will eventually be overturned.”
In a statement reacting to the verdict, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) said the verdict came as a surprise to many observers, given that the original trial ended last year with a U.S. District Court Judge acquitting five defendants on charges of aiding terrorists abroad, and declaring a mistrial on the remaining 197 counts brought against the Holy Land Foundation.
The jury also found that the defendants must forfeit the $12.4 million in Holy Land funds which were seized when the organization was shut down in 2001. The charitable funds were collected by the organization from American Muslim donors to provide aid to needy Palestinians. The MPAC believes that these funds should be dispersed to another charitable organization that is providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinians living under occupation, as intended by Muslim American donors fulfilling their zakat (almsgiving) obligations.
The MPAC pointed out that another legal entanglement created by this trial is an 11-page list of "unindicted co-conspirators" which was leaked by the Department of Justice to the media. More than 300 individuals and American Muslim organizations are named as “unindicted co-conspirators.” The ACLU, recently filed a motion which argued that the due-process rights of the named individuals and organizations were violated, because they were listed without having the right to defend themselves.
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, president of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, an advocacy group based in Bethesda, Maryland, said the verdict would further confuse donors to Islamic charities, many of whom have been wary of giving to Islamic groups since Sept. 11. “It seems to give a green light for further intimidation of Muslim charities,” he said. “It makes people even more unsure of what they are supposed to do to avoid having a problem.”
Khalil Meek, a longtime spokesman for a coalition of Holy Land Foundation supporters called Hungry for Justice, which includes national Muslim and civil rights groups, said “We respect the jury’s decision, but we disagree and we think the defendants are completely innocent,” Mr. Meek said. “For the last two years we’ve watched this trial unfold, and we have yet to see any evidence of a criminal act introduced to a jury. This jury found that humanitarian aid is a crime.” The criminalization of legitimate charitable giving is not just an attack on the American Muslim community; it is an attack on every American who believes in the moral duty to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and heal the sick, he added.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, called the Holy Land case an "example of excessive and vexatious prosecution." The intention was to chill Muslim charities in the U.S., and that is exactly what happened, he said.
Star-Telegram - November 30, 2008
Holy Land Five convictions mark
sad day for American justice system
BOB RAY SANDERS
On its face, the U.S. government won last week when a federal jury in Dallas convicted the Richardson-based charity Holy Land Foundation and five former leaders of providing financial aid to a foreign terrorist organization — Hamas.
But a Fort Worth defense attorney who has been involved in the case since 2005 called the prosecution shameful and compared the 42-day trial to some of the darkest days in American history.
Attorney Greg Westfall, one of eight lawyers on the case, sat in his downtown office Wednesday — two days after the guilty verdicts had been handed down on all 108 counts — and looked dejected.
After years of silence because of a gag order in the case, Westfall was ready to talk.
He began by pointing to a published story in which Richard Roper, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, was quoted as saying, "This is a great day in the United States. We will not tolerate those who fund terrorism."
"A great day for the United States?" Westfall asked rhetorically and emphatically. "Yeah, like Dred Scott was a great day for the United States. Like the 'Red Scare’ was a great day in America."
(Dred Scott was the 1857 Supreme Court case that declared no slave or descendant of a slave was a citizen of the United States and, therefore, had no right to sue in federal court.)
The case involving what I call "The Holy Land Five" was one in which the U.S. government spent years and millions of dollars to convict the charity leaders on conspiracy charges. The first trial ended in a mistrial last year, but prosecutors vowed to pursue it.
"This was a trial based on fear and prejudice," Westfall said, adding that President George W. Bush had "set the tone for this day by using words " like 'Islamic fascists.’
For example, he said, "In the 1940s we rounded up several thousand Japanese, just because they were Japanese. Ten years later, we had the 'Red Scare’ that ruined lives — that killed the Rosenbergs. And here we go again."
In pandering to racial and religious prejudices, Westfall said, the prosecution depended on people accepting the stereotype that "Muslim equals Islamist equals terrorist."
"Do we as Christians want to be judged by Eric Rudolph blowing up abortion clinics?" he said. "If we as Christians don’t want to be judged by that, then we probably should not judge all Muslims because of Osama bin Laden."
While avoiding criticizing the jury, Westfall did not hesitate to condemn "the way the case was presented and allowed to be presented — by the judge and the government — to the jury."
It was based mainly on guilt by association, he said, including associations with groups that have never been proven to be "terrorists" or supporters of terrorism.
The Holy Land Foundation generally gave to zakat committees that supported charities, including orphanages, in the Middle East. The government shut down the organization in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks and then began the long crusade to convict its leaders by trying to tie them to Hamas, which the U.S. declared a terrorist group in 1995.
Westfall thought it out of line that the government published a list of about 300 unindicted co-conspirators, groups he said were considered by many to be mainstream organizations, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
"Any statements made by anybody on that list could be held against our clients," he said.
The attorney said the government also produced items from a search warrant of someone’s home in Virginia, and went so far as to present documents, seized in a military operation, that the defense was not allowed to see.
"We were barred from seeing them or an index of what was there, and [the prosecution] introduced them through an unnamed Israeli soldier who was not present when the documents were seized," he said.
In addition, there were other "unsigned and unauthored" documents retrieved in a raid of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and introduced as evidence, he said.
"It was all tied together by an Israeli secret agent who didn’t have to give his name," Westfall said. "He testified as an expert — was allowed to testify at length without us knowing who he was. Do you realize what power that is? If you don’t have to give your real name, you can’t face perjury — you get a free pass."
He added, "If the president of the United States had testified in this trial, he would have had to give his name. In this trial, we gave an Israeli secret agent more power than we would give the president of the United States."
The attorney said prosecutors tried to link the nonprofit organization to terrorists when in reality it was simply a faith-based group supporting charities whose leaders often talked about the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"The Holy Land Foundation was a faith-based organization that just happened to be the wrong faith," he said.
The case will be appealed. When asked what chances he thought he had, Westfall said: "I think it gets reversed — hope springs eternal. I think in the end —and it may take way too long — America gets it right. We just have to go through this over and over again."
Because prosecutors argued that the defendants have still been raising money and, therefore, pose a threat to the country, the judge ordered them jailed while the case is on appeal.
I’m on record saying that this case was more about religious bigotry and political pressure than facts. And I believe, like many others, that the Holy Land Five are political prisoners, not terrorists………….
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/columnists/bob_ray_sanders//v-print/story/1064204.html
|
