10-25-07 the holy land foundation verdict

8/8/2019 10-25-07 the Holy Land Foundation Verdict

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THE HOLY LAND FOUNDATION VERDICT

Criminal Defense Attorneys in Dallas Raise Reasonable Doubt and

Force Mistrial

Under its original name Occupied Land Fund, the Holy Land Foundationwas established in California in 1989 by Ghassan Elashi and otherPalestinian Muslims. The purpose of the Foundation was to provideassistance to Palestinians displaced by a Palestinian uprising against Israelsoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The uprising became known as theintifada. The most aggressive, and violent, resistance in the intifada camefrom the Iranian-backed organization called Hamas which had beenestablished in 1987. The leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, wasmarried to Elashis cousin.

Three years later, in 1992, Holy Land moved its headquarters to Richardson,Texas. The Foundation came under the scrutiny of the governments of theUnited States and Israel the following year. An Illinois businessman namedMuhammad Salah detained in Israel informed authorities that Holy Land,which had become Americas largest Muslim charity, was actually a frontfor Hamas. While he later claimed that he had provided information to theIsraelis under torture, he told the authorities that Marzook, who was living inthe U.S. at the time, had actually funded the creation of Holy Land with

hundreds of thousands of dollars of start-up money.

Armed with the information provided by Salah, the FBI in October 1993bugged a meeting at a Philadelphia hotel between Holy Land organizers andwhat the agency called Hamas sympathizers. The FBI capturedconversations among the participants about how to raise money for Hamaswithout attracting undue attention of U.S. authorities. Both groups knewU.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies were on high alertfollowing the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

By accident or design, the Salah information was leaked to the news mediain late 1994 linking the Holy Land Foundation to Hamas. The DallasMorning News took the lead in the media-based investigations uncoveringties between the Foundation and Hamas activists. Holy Land and otherAmerican-based Muslim groups expressed outraged, publicly denying anylink between the Foundation and Hamas.


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Nonetheless, United States law enforcement agencies stepped up theirsurveillance and investigations of the Foundation. In 1995 Marzook wasdetained by federal agents at the JFK International Airport in New York.The United States declared him a specially designated terrorist. Thesefederal investigations developed troubling information that Holy Land wasflying militant clerics with Hamas ties into the country to headline charityfundraisers in the United States. The clerics often called for a violentjihad, or holy war, against Israel. Hamas was promptly declared aterrorist organization by the United States.

Israel responded to these revelations by ordering the closure of a Holy Landoffice in 1996 in a Jerusalem suburb. The Israelis said the closure was due tothe Foundations fundraising activities for a foreign terrorist organization.Israel pressured the United States to close the Foundations Richardson-

based headquarters, but the U.S. refused to directly confront Holy Land.However, New York Senator Charles Schumer, a lawmaker who openly hadstrong ties to the Israeli lobby, stepped up Congressional pressure on HolyLand by sponsoring legislation that made it a federal crime to raise moneyfor foreign terrorist organizations. He called for a federal investigationinto the financial ties between Hamas and Holy Land.

In 1997 the Commerce Department developed information that an Internetservice provider and computer services firm called InfoCom had been set upin Richardson by Elashis family and funded by Marzook. The firm waslocated next door to Holy Land. The department had learned that InfoComhad contacted Saddam Husseins government about setting up a domainname .ig. The United States responded to these developments by deportingMarzook, although he had not been indicted for any criminal wrongdoing.

By 1999 federal investigators had learned that InfoCom had violated exportlaws, as the Dallas Morning News reported, by doing business withcustomers in Syria and Libya, both of which the U.S. considered statesponsors of terrorism. Pointing out that allegations involving Holy Land

and Hamas had been swirling since 1996, President Bill Clintons StateDepartment considered but stopped short of adding the Foundation to a listof foreign terrorist organizations which already included Hamas.

Federal investigators continued to work the export law case against InfoComfor the new two years before shutting the company down just six days beforethe September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers Twin Towers.


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The firm and its Muslim supporters vehemently protested the lawenforcement action, denying any links to either terrorism or Holy Land. TheFBI responded to the public criticism by pointing out that it had seized fromInfoCom 20 boxes of Holy Land records that included the charity groups

bank records, correspondence and videos.

The FBI examination of these boxes of documents had barely begun whenthe 9/11 attacks occurred. The agencys investigation surged into warpspeed, pulling together what the Dallas Morning News called eight years ofintelligence and evidence on Holy Land. Armed with this evidence and a

political climate bordering on hysteria, the FBI stormed Holy Lands officeswith search warrants and authority to seize its assets.

Standing in the Rose Garden on December 4, 2001, President Bush

announced that he had ordered the Richardson-based office of the Holy LandFoundation and its offices in three other cities to be closed. Calling thegroup a front for Hamas, Bush ordered all its assets frozen. Federalinvestigators estimated that the group had raised $57 million between 1992and 2001 - $12 million of which had been sent to Hamas since 1995 whenthat group was designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

On July 7, 2004 Elashi, his four brothers and InfoCom were convicted infederal court of shipping computers to Libya and Syria and falsifying thevalue of other shipments. Marzook, a Louisiana Tech graduate, had beenindicted but deported before the indictment was handed down.

Two and one-half weeks after this conviction, Elashi, five other men, andHoly Land are named in a 42-count indictment. The indictment charged thatthe charity group and its officers had engaged in a conspiracy to deal withterrorists and launder $12 million to them.

On April 16, 2007 Elashi began serving a 6 -year federal prison systemimposed following his conviction in the InfoCom case.

On July 16, 2007 jury selection began in the Holy Land case. Eight dayslater U.S. Attorney Jim Jacks told the jury in his opening statement that thegovernment would prove that Holy Land gave money to Palestinian zakat(charity) committees that were controlled by Hamas. The Dallas Morning

News outlined the following key points in the governments case:


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Former Holy Land CEO Shukari said that war is deception,according to a wiretap of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia betweenHoly Land organizers and what the government says were Hamassympathizers. In that conversation, he was speaking about playingdown Hamas ties to keep raising money in the U.S. according to FBItestimony.

FBI agents testified that several overseas clerics who were flown tothe U.S. by Holy Land to headline fundraisers were Hamas activists.At one of these fundraisers, a Holy Land defendant pretended to killan Israeli during a skit.

An Israeli government agent testified that the zakat committees towhich Holy Land sent millions of dollars were staffed with well-known Hamas activists. The Israeli found key chains, videos and

posters that praised suicide bombers inside the committees offices.

The key points for Holy Lands defense were cited by the Morning Newsas follows:

Edward Abington, the former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem,testified that even though he spent years in the region and briefeddaily by the CIA, he was never told that zakat committees werecontrolled by Hamas.

Natalia Suleiman, Holy Lands former administrative assistant,

testified that the foundation did humanitarian work not only in thePalestinian territories but also in Lebanon, Jordan, Albania andTurkey. Projects included food aid and clean water wells, shetestified. All the projects were well-documented and legitimate, shetold jurors.

Former U.S. Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, who served as attorney toHoly Land in the late 1990s after it was accused in the media of beingtied to Hamas, testified that he got no help when he asked the FBI andState Department whether the foundation was under investigation, andfor guidance on new federal anti-terrorism laws.

The jury in the Holy Land case began its deliberations on September 20,2007. The jury was in turmoil from the very beginning. Four days into thedeliberations the jury foreman sent a note to trial judge Joe Fish saying the

jury is having trouble staying on task with the charge. That was clearlyunderstandable. After sitting through nearly two months of arcanetestimony, the jury had to listen to what the Morning News called


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magazine-length legal instructions. The jury instructions were in fact 54pages in length a daunting task to comprehend.

In the September 26 note to trial judge Joe Fish, the jury foreman said thatjurors frequently attacked each other and that opinions, not facts, arediscussed. Some are closed to deliberations, which shuts off conversationsthat are meaningful.

On October 18, 2007 the jury reached a verdict, but Judge Fish was out oftown attending a conference. He ordered the jury verdict sealed until heretuned. Four days later the verdict was un-sealed before the judge, but Fishand courtroom observers were stunned when several jurors told the judgethat they no longer agreed with the jury decision. The jury foreman was evenmore stunned.

When we voted, there was no issue in the vote, she told the judge. Noone spoke up any different. I really dont understand where it is comingfrom. All 12 made that decision.

Judge Fish promptly ordered the jury back into deliberations only to havethe jurors return an hour later with one of them still uneasy about the

panels decisions. Judge Fish was forced to declare a mistrial.

William Neal is the only juror to speak publicly about the deliberations. Hesaid he wasnt surprised by the hold-out juror who, as the Morning Newsreported, sometimes dozed off during the trial.

She was sleeping during deliberations, Neal said. wed hear her snore,and wed say, Wake up! she said she was bullied. She felt so threatened,she would break down. What do you do when someone cries? I stopped

being nice. This isnt fund and games, I told them. This is not aboutpersonal feelings.

Neal described for the media an eerie scene in the judges chambers afterFish had declared the mistrial involving the holdout juror.

She looked at the judge and said she was confused, Neal reported. He[Fish] just looked at her. Theres not much you can say to that. Ignorance isa formidable weapon. You cant attack it.


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Ive never seen anything like what happened yesterday, said former Dallasfederal prosecutor John Helms the day after the mistrial. It looks like theyhad four days to sit at home and think about it.

Some 200 Holy Land supporters, and the Elashi family in particular, wereelated with the trials outcome.

Like Rosa Parks once was persecuted for simply sitting in a front seat of abus, my dad was singled out for feeding, clothing and educating the childrenof Palestine, said Noor Elashi, daughter of Ghassan Elashi.

Well be all right, said Shukri Abu Baker, a former Holy Land CEO, told aUnited Church of Christ minister there to support the group.

Were in goods hands, he added, looking up to the ceiling.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-IslamicRelations, compared the governments action in the Holy Land case toMcCarthyism in the 1950s.

Todays campaign has a different name and a different target, he said.The campaign is anti-terrorism and the target is the American Muslimcommunity.

After fourteen years of investigation, nearly two months of trial, 19 days ofjury deliberations, four days of waiting in limbo, and a lone juror holdoutthat prompted a mistrial, the government announced it would retry the case.The government presented its case. At least one juror did not accept thatcase. This is reasonable doubt. A retrial serves no legitimate governmentalobjective. The Holy Land case has caused incalculable damage to American-Muslim relations in this country. It is time to bury the proverbial hatchet.The governments investigation began with recanted testimony and itsevidence of the Foundations support for terrorism was circumstantial at

best. Government resources can better be expended healing rather thanprosecuting.

10-25-07 the holy land foundation verdict

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