Exclusive: The Holy Land Foundation Trial: Faith, Hate and Charity (Part One of Two)


Author: Adrian Morgan

Date Published: 2007-10-09


 

Family Security Matters has been following the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity accused of aiding and abetting terror activities. In the first of a two-part series, FSM Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan describes the trial, including background information that adds much-needed clarity to the proceedings.

 

The Holy Land Foundation Trial: Faith, Hate and Charity

(Part One of Two)

 

 

By Adrian Morgan

 

The jury in the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas, was expected to bring in a verdict last week, but one juror appears unable or unwilling to cast a vote. The jury foreman passed a handwritten note to Judge Joe A. Fish on Wednesday last week, which read: "What do we do when a juror refuses to vote?" By this time the jury had spent nine days in deliberation.

 

Judge Fish addressed the jurors on Wednesday, October 3rd, saying: "This is an important case. The trial has been expensive in time, effort and money to both the defense and the prosecution. If you should fail to agree on a verdict, the case is left open and must be tried again."

 

A verdict is still pending.

 

Background

 

The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was headquartered at Richardson, a suburb of Dallas in Texas. HLF also had offices in New Jersey, California, Illinois, Jerusalem and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was a so-called charity founded in 1989, which was officially shut down by the U.S. government on December 4, 2001. The group was accused of funding anti-Israeli terror group Hamas. In 2000, HLF received $13 million from U.S. residents, and six years earlier it provided a $5,000 donation which helped to start the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a so-called "advocacy group."

 

As well as the HLF, the defendants in the trial have been Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammed El-Mezain, Ghassan Elashi, Haitham Maghawri, Akram Mishal, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh. Two of the seven named individuals have fled the country: Haitham Maghawri lives in Lebanon, and Akram Mishal (a cousin of Hamas leader Khalid Mishal) fled six months before he was indicted.

 

The indictment was issued on July 27, 2004 and on that date the five individuals who were in the United States were arrested. The indictment was made following 33 months of research by U.S. justice department and state and federal agency officials.

 

The seven men were charged with twelve counts of violating the prohibition on providing "material support and resources" to a foreign terrorist organization. Additionally they faced 13 counts of breaching the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which prevents transactions which threaten national security, including transactions with Hamas. They are also charged on thirteen counts of money laundering. For providing "material support," the maximum sentence is 15 years for each count. For violating IEEPA terms, the maximum sentence is 10 years for each count. For money laundering, the maximum penalty is 20 years per count.

 

In addition to the above charges, Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi face four counts of tax violations, stemming from their alleged filing of false charitable tax returns. The maximum sentence for this is five years on each count.

 

Along with the seven named individuals, a massive list of around 300 "unindicted co-conspirators" and "joint venturers" was included.

 

Among the unindicted co-conspirators were groups such as CAIR and INFOCOM, and individuals/entities who were said to be members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood: Abel Rahman Alamoudi, Gaddor ibrahim Saidi, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), Nizar Minshar, the North American Islamic Trust, (NAIT), Raed Awad and Tareq Suwaidan. 39 directors, employees and representatives of HLF were also named.

 

Of the seven main defendants, Ghassan Elashi was chairman of CAIR's Texas chapter and used his computer company INFOCOM to hide transfers of money for terrorism. He was indicted earlier on terror funding charges (in 2002). On April 13, 2005 , Elashi and his brothers Bayan and Basman were convicted of "conspiring to provide material support to terrorists." The three channeled funds to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior official of Hamas who is based in Syria. Marzook founded the Islamic Association For Palestine (IAP) in Richardson, Texas. He was assisted in the setting up of IAP by Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to funding Palestinian Islamic Jihad in April last year.

 

IAP was the parent group of CAIR. It sent funds to Hamas. Mousa Abu Marzook is named as a co-conspirator in the Dallas trial. On October 13, 2006, Ghassan Elashi was given a seven year jail sentence.

 

The Trial

 

The trial (3:04-cr-240) began on July 23rd this year, and its outcome will have important ramifications for the standing of various Islamic groups in the United States. A measure of the complexity of the trial can be found in the list of evidence submitted to the court.

 

While the trial developed, a website founded by Ghassan Elashi's daughter, Noor Elashi, entitled "Freedom to Give" gave suitably biased updates. The trial, according to the website, was an Israeli trial, and the Holy Land Foundation's "only crimes were providing essential human needs that every human is entitled to including diapers and clothes, backpacks and books, toys and lollipops, ambulances and medical supplies."

 

Despite the importance of the trial, the largest terrorist-financing case in U.S. history, there were problems with jurors. The trial had commenced with 12 jurors and six alternates. In the first two weeks of the trial, two jurors were excused from their duties as they claimed the trial was interfering with their work commitments. A third juror was excused with no reason given on Monday August 6th. Another juror, who was not dismissed, was admonished by Judge Joe A. Fish for sleeping during the trial.

 

At the start of August, an FBI agent told the court of a three-day meeting which took place at a Philadelphia hotel in October, 1993. FBI Special Agent Lara Burns read out transcripts of this meeting, which was secretly recorded. The Philadelphia meeting took place shortly after the Oslo Accords were agreed upon, which approved the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The Oslo accords promised a measure of peace in Israeli/Palestinian interactions.

 

The meeting in Philadelphia first came to the attention of U.S. authorities when a telephone call was recorded by the FBI on September 14, 1993. The phone call involved Omar Ahmed, founder of CAIR (who was then the president of IAP), Shukri Abu Baker, and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar, the head of a known Hamas-based charity.

 

 

The conversation involved who to invite to the meeting, and one of the names was "Nihad." This individual was said by those in the conversation to be in "media." Shukri Abu Bakr also referred to an article in that day's issue of the Dallas Morning News, in which the same "Nihad" was quoted. At that time, Nihad Awad was spokesperson and press officer for IAP. On September 14, 1993, he was featured in the Dallas Morning News. Nihad Awad co-founded CAIR with Omar Ahmed (one of the trial's unindicted coconspirators) and is now the executive director of CAIR.

 

Until the trial, he was known to the FBI only as Nihad LNU ("last name unknown"). It was revealed that in October 2003, Awad was asked about the Philadelphia hotel meeting during a civil suit. When asked, he replied: "I don't think so." Then he added: "I don't remember." During the meeting in Philadelphia, Nihad was again referenced. Lara Burns, who amassed much of the prosecution's evidence, testified that "Nihad LNU" was Nihad Awad.

 

In discussions prior to the meeting in Philadelphia in October 1993, those involved decided not to mention the name "Hamas," but to use the term "Samah" (Hamas in reverse). The intention of the Philadelphia hotel meeting was to discuss attempts to derail the Oslo peace process, and to work out how to operate fund-raising for Hamas in the United States without raising suspicions. Almost two dozen representatives from U.S. Muslim organizations attended the Philadelphia conference. Many of these went on to found other groups.

 

Transcripts made by the FBI showed that delegates referred to Hamas as "the Movement." Among these transcripts, Shukri Abu Baker was recorded as saying: "The organizations must work to fulfill basic needs of the Movement in the areas of specializations such as journalism, law, politics, media, education and investment. Work must be done to make America a support for the inside by organizing relationships between organizations."

 

Some of the conversations recorded by the FBI were dramatized by the BBC in a documentary entitled "Faith, Hate and Charity" (transcript here), originally broadcast on July 28, 2006.  As well as including details of the Philadelphia hotel meeting, a document from 1991 was placed before the Dallas court as evidence for the prosecution. This document was authored by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which was the parent organization of Hamas. The document described MB's efforts in the U.S. to be "a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

 

 Hamas was designated as a terrorist entity by the U.S. on January 23, 1995. Defense attorney Greg Westfall (representing Abdulrahman Odeh) cross-examined FBI Special Agent Lara Burns. He asked: "Every allegation in this indictment would not have been a crime prior to this date?" Agent Burns, who had first taken the stand on July 26, confirmed Westfall's question. By this time (August 7th), more than 400 items – including documents, audio tapes, transcripts and videos – had been submitted as evidence.

 

Joshua Dratel, attorney for Mohammed El-Mezain, also questioned Lara Burns. The questioning concerned a donation that had been sent to HLF's Paterson, New Jersey, office by an individual in New Brunswick, N.J., in 1996 (after Hamas was declared a terrorist entity). This donor called himself "Sultan Mahmoud". His accompanying letter, written in a scrawl, read:

 

"Salam Alekum

 

Enclosed is modest contribution for our people, suffering from Jewish/Christian (Western) crimes. Inshallah, both will be defeated/slaughtered & kicked out of Islamic lands. This is for relief supplies and weapons to crush the hated enemy. Thank you, "Sultan Mahmoud".

 

PS: Today the criminals celebrate "Thanksgiving"; who once helped their ancestors survive harsh winter. Then stole their land and killed most all natives. Whosoever was left lives as effective slaves in reservations. The Islamic Ummah must not let this happen to us. We must destroy Israel & unite to get nuclear weapons to kill the West if they attack the member nations of the Ummah/ Unity = means must restore Kilafa [the Caliphate]."

 

Joshua Dratel asked Special Agent Burns if she considered that the letter (posted on November 28, 1996) sounded as if it came from a "nut." She was asked by U.S. Attorney James Jacks what happened to this donation. Lara Burns said that the donation was accepted by HLF, and the group additionally added "Sultan Mahmoud" to its mailing list. HLF later solicited him for more donations.

 

On August 9th, an Israeli intelligence agent appeared in the court, identified only by the pseudonym “Major Lior.” He appeared under tight security, and using a translator he gave evidence about documents, videos and posters that had been seized in the Palestinian territories between 2002 and 2004. The documentation showed details of how Hamas was funded, and also details of how "zakat" or "charity" money was distributed. On August 14th, Judge Joe A. Fish ruled that some of Major Lior's documents should be barred as evidence, even though he agreed that almost 40 other items seized in Israel were admissible.

 

Another Israeli agent, known as "Avi," was approved by Judge Fish to appear in court under the same security conditions that surrounded "Major Lior." Avi, who was an employee of Shin Bet, testified that most funding for Hamas came from overseas, particularly from the U.S., Europe, the Gulf states, and from North Africa.

 

He said on August 15th: "When I'm talking about a network, a global network that would serve Hamas’ goals in the financial aspect, this ... structure was by design. Someone wanted to create it. It wasn't created just like this, out of the blue." He said that many donations from the network found their way to "charity committees" run by Palestinian Hamas activists.

 

On the same day, CAIR tried to remove its name from the list of unindicted coconspirators. Their petition was later refused.

 

On Monday August 20th, Ghassan Elashi began shouting, leading to an admonishment from Judge Joe A. Fish. Elashi shouted that the trial was a "Zionist conspiracy" as the court was being cleared for a mid-morning break. A Dallas Morning News reporter, Steve McGonigle, testified in the afternoon that he had gone to Israel and Palestinian territories in 1999 for two weeks. He met Sheikh Yassin, the founder of Hamas, who denied that funds had come from HLF.

 

An audiotape was played to the court of a phone conversation between Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi and others, which had been covertly taped by FBI. In this conversation they spoke of how Yassin had "played dumb" when he spoke to McGonigle. The individuals also referred to McGonigle as a "snake."

 

Among the evidence presented by the prosecution were videos. One in particular drew attention. In the video, characters appear on a stage, apparently acting in front of children. The characters include one of the five defendants who were in the courtroom – Mufid Abdulqader. According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, these performances were mounted by the IAP in the late 1980s. Qatar says (in character): "I am Hamas and I'm going to kill Jews." At the end of the performance, he "kills" the Jew, and children are heard laughing and applauding.

 

The prosecution in the trial presented evidence about Ghassan Elashi's company INFOCOM, which was raided on September 5, 2001, causing 500 mostly Muslim websites which were hosted by the company, to crash. INFOCOM also held the rights to the internet suffix ".iq", the country code for Iraq. Amongst the evidence presented at the trial was a security manual found at the Texas company. It included these words, written by Elashi: "Caution should be practiced not to reveal true identity." This is not dissimilar by claims made by Shukri Abu Baker at the 1993 convention that "war is deception."

 

The evidence entered into the trial is of a phenomenal quantity, perhaps enough to give jurors an overdose of information – considering they must be able to assess the documentation and video evidence, to assess the role of the HLF, particularly in regards to how it funded "zakat committees" in the Palestinian territories. Much of the evidence presented by the two Israeli witnesses had emerged after Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield".

 

Newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News which have covered the trial have only given the briefest of resumés of the evidence provided, when close study of documents is vital to understand how money from HLF was distributed. One of the charities listed as a co-conspirator in the trial, the Bethlehem Orphans Society, is known to have received money from U.K.-based "charity" Interpal, another co-conspirator. Interpal was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist entity and funder of Hamas on August 22, 2003. The Bethlehem Orphans Society, run by a Hamas activist, was outlawed in Israel in 2002 after documents found in Operation Defensive Shield showed it gave special payments to the families of suicide terrorists.

 

The motion, or "amicus curiae brief," by CAIR to have itself removed from Attachment A of the list of unindicted co-conspirators was argued against by the prosecution, in a motion filed on August 28, 2007. On page 12 of the 27-page motion, the prosecution claimed:

 

"CAIR's claims against the Government are plainly moot. CAIR has asserted no justiciable claim because no "meaningful relief" is available, in light of the fact that CAIR's participation as a joint-venturer and co-conspirator is a matter of public record in this case, and was a matter of public record even prior to the filing of the government's Trial Brief.2 See, e.g., Government Exhibits 3-17 (objective of the Palestine Committee is to support Hamas); 3-1 (showing Omar Ahmad as part of the Palestine Committee and Mousa Abu Marzook as its head); 3-78 (listing IAP, HLF, UASR and CAIR as part of the Palestine Committee, and stating that there is “[n]o doubt America is the ideal location to train the necessary resources to support the Movement worldwide ..."); see also Testimony of Special Agent Lara Burns and supporting exhibits (placing Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad at 1993 Philadelphia conference, and describing Omar Ahmad's mediation of a 1994 dispute between Abdelhaleem Ashqar and HLF over fundraising by Hamas founder Sheik Jamil Hamami.)"

 

The prosecution rested its case on August 30th. FBI Special Agent Lara Burns was grilled by defense attorney Linda Moreno. Agent Burns was persuaded to concede that not all of the "martyrs" in the Palestinian territories assisted by HLF were terrorists.

 

During the trial, evidence from FBI wiretaps revealed that one of the defendants, Abdulrahman Odeh, had referred to suicide bombings as "beautiful operations." He had also sent money to the family of Yahya Ayyash, Hamas' main bomb-maker, responsible for the deaths of 70 Israelis. Known as "the Engineer," Ayyash was blown up in Gaza by a booby-trapped cell phone on January 5, 1996.

 

Two individuals were expected to give evidence for the prosecution, but were not called to testify. These were two of the unindicted co-conspirators. One was Mohamed Shorbagi, and the other was Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurahman Alamoudi, an adviser to President Clinton. Alamoudi had also advised the Pentagon on Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military between 1993 and 1998. He was sentenced in 2004 to 23 years in jail for plotting the assassination of Saudi Arabia's current monarch. He told an investigator in October 2003: "There is an organization called Holy Land Foundation. This organization for this holy land collects money from the Islamic and Arab communities in America so as to serve our nation in the occupied land."

 

Mohamed Shorbagi, an illegal alien, pleaded guilty to funding Hamas on August 28, 2006, and was sentenced to seven years and eight months in jail on February 24th of this year. Shorbagi was the imam at a mosque in Rome, Georgia. In October 2006, the U.S. Justice Department claimed: "Shorbagi provided the support through donations to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development knowing that some or all of the money was in fact destined for Hamas" and stated that he had "hosted high-level Hamas officials" at his mosque in Georgia.

 

 In Part Two, I will discuss the claims made during the defendants' defense testimonies.

# # #

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.

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