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AMP Report – July 24, 2007
Trial of the Holy Land Foundation begins
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
July 24, 2007 - The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development went on trial today in Dallas, Texas as the federal agents were raiding two other Muslim charities in Dearborn, Michigan. The Holy Land was being tried on suspicion of aiding terrorism by helping the Palestinian militant group Hamas while the two Michigan charities - the Goodwill Charitable Organization and Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization were suspected of having ties to extremist groups in Lebanon. Just like the Holy Land, assets of the two Michigan charities have been frozen.
The Holy Land, founded in 1989 was one of the largest Muslim charities in the nation before it was shut down under executive orders in December 2001. It was one of six Muslim major charities in the country that have been shut in recent years as the Muslim charities were scrutinized and persecuted as part of a broader backlash against Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. Other five shut down charities are: Global Relief Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation,Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Islamic American Relief Agency and KindHearts USA.
Under a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the government has largely unchecked power to designate any group as a terrorist organization. When that happens, a group's property may be seized and its assets frozen. The charity is unable to see the government's evidence and thus understand the basis for the charges. And it has only a limited right of appeal. So, the government can target a charity, obtain indictments against its leaders, then delay a trial indefinitely.
The Bush administration froze the Holy Land Foundation’s assets charging it with funneling money to Hamas, an allegation strongly refuted by the Holy Land officials. According to its mission statement, the Foundation is a humanitarian organization that works to find "solutions to human suffering," primarily focusing on providing urgent nutritional and medical care to the destitute and displaced Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon.
The government says Hamas' support organization in the United States, known as the "Palestinian Committee," organized the "Occupied Land Fund" in 1988. The name was later changed to the Holy Land Foundation. First based in California, the foundation moved to Richardson, Texas in 1992.
The defendants named in a 42-count indictment in 2004 are Holy Land Foundation, 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 Abdulqader. Two other men named in the indictment remain fugitives.
This is the third trial involving Ghassan Elashi brothers. The court, because of the complexities of the investigation, decided to break the proceedings into three trials, with the one beginning today being the most expansive and the one directly related to the Holy Land Foundation. In summer 2004, five brothers who ran Infocom were convicted of selling computers to countries that support terrorism. In April 2005, three of the brothers were convicted of conspiracy, money laundering and "dealing in the property of a terrorist."
The five men on trial aren't accused of being terrorists. Rather, they are charged with funneling $36 million to individuals and groups tied to Hamas, including $12.4 million sent after Clinton's designation.
Acknowledging that the Holy Land Foundation did not directly carry out terrorist attacks, prosecutors say that the charity acted as the "social wing" of Hamas, "much like a social welfare agency," providing money and assistance to such places as schools, clinics and worship centers "to win the hearts and minds of the Palestinian population and solidify loyalty to Hamas." "In order for Hamas to achieve its ultimate ... goal of annihilating Israel, it had to win the broad support of the Palestinian population. The [foundation] set out to do just that," the government's brief said.
This case, shrouded in secrecy and heavily dependent on testimony from Israeli agents, comes loaded with unique legal challenges. Prosecution witnesses expected to testify include a retired Israeli Army colonel.
Though defense attorneys already have government clearances that allow them to review the material, under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act they have been prohibited from sharing it with their clients. And unless the act's rules are declared unconstitutional in the case, defense attorneys argue, the defendants will have no way of proving that the statements attributed to them were misconstrued or never made.
Los Angeles Times reports substantial discrepancies
Criminal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation provided a glimpse into the government's use of evidence to justify seizure and freezing of charitable assets in the name of the war of terrorism. Pre-trial filings show sanctions have been imposed against charities and their officials for contacting organizations that are not designated by the government as supporters of terrorism. The case also appears to depend on questionable foreign intelligence information and faulty translations.
The Holy Land Foundation brought a formal complaint with the Justice Department inspector general and requested an investigation, saying that the F.B.I. used as the crux of its case a "distorted" and erroneous translation of sensitive Israeli intelligence material. The Holy Land said it hired an independent translating service in Oregon, which cited 67 discrepancies or errors in translation in a four-page F.B.I. document used in the case.
According to a February 2007 report by the Los Angeles Times, Holy Land Foundation or HLF defense attorneys cited substantial discrepancies between an FBI official summary and a word for word transcript of a wiretapped conversation involving Holy Land officials in 1996. The summary, used as evidence by the government, ascribes numerous hateful anti-Semitic statements to charity officials that are not found in the recorded conversation.
The LA Times said that when the Bush administration shut down the nation's largest Muslim charity five years ago, officials of the Dallas-based foundation denied allegations it was linked to terrorists and insisted that a number of accusations were fabricated by the government. Now, attorneys for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development say the government's own documents provide evidence of that claim.
The LA Times reported:
“In recent court filings, defense lawyers disclosed striking discrepancies between an official summary and the verbatim transcripts of an FBI-wiretapped conversation in 1996 involving Holy Land officials. The summary attributes inflammatory, anti-Semitic comments to Holy Land officials that are not found in a 13-page transcript of the recorded conversation. It recently was turned over to the defense by the government in an exchange of evidence.
“Citing the unexplained discrepancies, defense lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish in Dallas to declassify thousands of hours of FBI surveillance recordings, so that full transcripts would replace government summaries as evidence. In December, the judge denied a defense request to declassify the documents so they could be examined by defendants in the case.
“The recently declassified summary of surveillance on April 15, 1996, asserts that during a conversation wiretapped by the FBI, Holy Land's former executive director Shukri Abu Baker told two associates there was no need to worry about the foundation being unfairly targeted because U.S. courts were not under the control of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or its sponsor, "the government of the demons of Israel."
The summary portrays Baker as raging against "the Jews of the world" and as claiming that Jews have no allegiance to anything but "their pockets and to preserving the illegal Zionist state of Israel."
Additional anti-Semitic comments the FBI summary attributed to Baker or Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former board chairman, included:
"Their [Jews'] only purpose here in the U.S. is to purchase as many politicians as possible and to warp the way the American Christians feel and think not just about the Christian religion but mainly about the Palestinian people … and to rob as much money as possible from American taxpayers for the illegitimate excuse of protecting and preserving the chosen people of God."
"Even Jesus Christ had called the Jews and their high priests … the sons of snakes and scorpions."
"I am confident that in the end justice, and not the Jews, will prevail. I believe that there is still justice in America."
None of those quotes was contained in a 13-page transcript of the conversation, defense lawyers said in their motion to expand access to classified evidence.
The LA Times said that because the court records are heavily redacted, it could not be determined who provided the summaries of the FBI wiretaps.
Other alleged discrepancies also have dogged the case, the paper said. Holy Land lawyers challenged the accuracy of an FBI memo, for example, that quoted a foundation office manager as telling Israeli authorities that charitable funds were "channeled to Hamas." But defense lawyers told the court the translation from Arabic to Hebrew to English distorted the official's original statement, and that he should have been quoted as saying, "We have no connection to Hamas."
Unindicted co-conspirators
The indictment lists about 300 individuals and groups as unindicted co-conspirators — among them long-established and U.S.-based organizations engaged in traditional lobbying efforts.
The government's co-conspirator's list includes the largest Muslim civil right group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the nation's largest Muslim educational source, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the North American Islamic Trust, the country's largest holding company of deeds to about 300 mosques, Islamic centers and schools in the U.S.
Typically, prosecutors identify a person or a group as an unindicted co-conspirator so that their statements, or those of people involved in the listed organizations, about the defendants can be used in court without them being considered hearsay, which is not permitted in trial.
The document gave scant details, but prosecutors described CAIR as a present or past member of "the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations." The government listed the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood."
While the Holy Land was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.
The practice of publicly naming unindicted co-conspirators is frowned on by some in the legal community, chiefly because there is no trial or other mechanism for those named to challenge their designation. Justice Department guidelines discourage the public identification of unindicted co-conspirators by the government.
"In all public filings and proceedings, federal prosecutors should remain sensitive to the privacy and reputation interests of uncharged third-parties," the Justice Department's manual for prosecutors says. When co-conspirator lists have to be filed in court, prosecutors should seek to file them under seal, the guidelines say.
In practice, the lists are often made public. A list of co-conspirators was released in connection with the federal trial in 2005 of a former college professor, Dr. Sami Al-Arian, on terrorism support charges. However, when Enron executives went on trial in 2006, the list of alleged co-conspirators was kept under seal.
Commenting on the unindicted list, Adam Braun, a former federal prosecutor told the Los Angeles Times said: "It seems like the government is painting with a pretty broad brush." He said office policy was to avoid "sullying someone's reputation unnecessarily" — generally limiting use of named co-conspirators unless there is proof of wrongdoing.
Surely, the prosecution is using McCarthyite tactics by implicating mainstream Muslim groups to silence genuine Muslim voices while providing ammunition to the anti-Muslim organizations. This is an attempt to marginalize and disenfranchise mainstream Muslim groups.
You are guilty until proved innocent
Common law says, you are innocent until proved guilty. However, in the case of Muslim charities, they are guilty until proved innocent. The emerging national trend also goes to the very foundation of America's legal system: transparency. If one side makes an argument to a judge, the other side gets to be there to disagree. But not in the cases of Muslim charities.
If past history has any relevance then there is some optimism for the Holy Land defenders. Previous trials along the same lines in Illinois and Florida have failed to produce convictions.
In February 2007, two men charged with sending money and recruits to Hamas were acquitted in Chicago, although the jury convicted them on lesser counts. One of the accused, Muhammad Salah, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for lying in a civil lawsuit brought by parents of a 17-year-old killed in Israel by Hamas gunmen. The parents won a $156 million judgment against Holy Land and two other Muslim groups.
In the other case, Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor accused of funding Mideast extremists was acquitted in 2005 on some charges, and the Florida jury was undecided on others. The government spent $70m in preparation on terrorism charges but did not receive one conviction. In a plea bargain last year, Al-Arian admitted he conspired to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
No US Muslim charity has been convicted of supporting terrorism since the crackdown began in 2001, though certain individuals associated with some charities have been sent to prison on various charges.
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