Muslim charity leaders on trial for allegedly aiding terrorists

  

(7/16/07 - DALLAS, TX) -- One of the most prominent anti-terror prosecutions of the past decade opened Monday as government lawyers and those representing leaders of a Muslim charity began quizzing potential jurors.

The men on trial in federal district court aren't accused of being terrorists. Rather, they are charged with funneling millions of dollars to the militant group Hamas, which allegedly used some of the money to support the families of suicide bombers in the Middle East.

Although the FBI investigated the men and the charity in the 1990s, the Bush administration raised the profile of the case since Sept. 11. President Bush announced the seizure of the charity's assets in a Rose Garden news conference three months later, in December 2001.

Defense lawyers say the men and the charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, helped build hospitals and schools for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation but are not connected to Hamas.

The defendants and their supporters claim the prosecution is based on anti-Arab bias.

The trial before District Judge A. Joe Fish is expected to last several months. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to lay out the case in opening statements next Monday.

Just picking a jury is expected to take all this week. Lead prosecutor James T. Jacks asked Fish to drop a family counselor after she hedged about following the judge's instructions on the law. The judge said he would rule later.

The defendants, all dressed in business suits, sat at tables arranged in a U-formation. Before the session started, they exchanged smiles and glanced occasionally at family members in the back row of the small courtroom.

The defendants named in a 42-count indictment in 2004 are Holy Land, which federal authorities raided and shut down in December 2001; Shukri Abu Baker, the charity's president; Ghassan Elashi, its chairman; Abdulrahman Odeh; Mohammad El-Mezain; and Mufid Abdulquader. Two other men named in the indictment remain fugitives.

The charges include supporting a foreign terrorist group, money laundering, conspiracy and filing false tax returns.

According to the indictment, Holy Land raised more than $57 million from 1992 to 2001 and sent about $36 million to individuals and groups tied to Hamas, including $12.4 million after President Clinton designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1995, which made contact with the group illegal.

Elashi is in federal prison near Dallas on other convictions, including financial dealings with a top Hamas official. Baker, Odeh, El-Mezain and Abdulqader have been free while preparing for the trial, according to a prosecution spokeswoman.

In a court filing in May that spelled out much of their case, prosecutors said Holy Land was sometimes called "The Fund" and was "an integral part of the Hamas social infrastructure." They said the organization was created "to support the Hamas agenda," which includes suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks.

Prosecutors said documents seized in 2004 from the Virginia home of an unindicted co-conspirator showed that Elashi, Baker and El-Mezain were part of a committee coordinating support for Hamas in the United States. Prosecutors said the FBI monitored the committee's actions, including meetings to discuss raising money for Hamas.

The investigation into Holy Land lasted more than a decade and included surveillance and wiretaps. Prosecution witnesses expected to testify include a retired Israeli Army colonel, a former Treasury Department official and expert on terrorism financing, and an unnamed person to discuss the structure of Hamas.

Prosecutors indicated their evidence will include U.S. and foreign bank records, intercepted phone calls and faxes, and records seized by Israeli forces during military operations in the occupied West Bank.

Defense attorneys said they will argue that most of the case against their clients is hearsay and flawed. They seized on summaries of FBI-wiretapped conversations that claimed Holy Land officials made anti-Semitic slurs. But the comments weren't found in the unabridged 13-page transcript.

The defense plans to call its own experts, including scholars who have studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prosecutors charged that defense lawyers are hoping to influence jurors with inflammatory testimony about Israel's operations against Palestinians.

The political overtones of the case run deep.

Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Bush administration was trying to silence Muslim opposition to Israeli policy and stop aid to Palestinian children by closing Holy Land.

"It has put a chill on First Amendment rights of Muslims in this country," Ahmed said. "It's caused Muslims to question, will donors be criminalized?"

Baker, the former president of the charity, said in 2001 that Holy Land's critics were racists who considered every Palestinian a potential terrorist, "even if they happen to be a 4-year-old child whose father decided to blow up himself."

In December of that year, Bush and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the seizure of Holy Land's assets.

"Those who do business with terror will do no business with the United States -- or anywhere else the United States can reach," the president declared. "The net is closing. Today it just got tighter."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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