Prosecution in Holy Land terror financing case nears conclusion
Monday, October 27, 2008

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News


Prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing retrial have switched gears in the run-up to what is expected to be the final week of their case before the defense begins.

After more than a month of testimony meant to show that five former organizers for the now-defunct Richardson foundation – once the nation's largest Muslim charity – for years espoused extremist views and courted ties to Islamic militants, prosecutors must now prove how the defendants' actions and beliefs led them to break U.S. laws.

To get convictions, prosecutors need to convince jurors that Holy Land sent millions of dollars to Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, knowing that they were controlled by Hamas after the U.S. designated it as a terrorist group in 1995.

Prosecutors last week unveiled a series of detailed charts that point jurors to the exact page of documents already in evidence allegedly showing the Hamas affiliations of the zakat committee leaders.

This roadmap to the nearly 500 documents, videos, wiretap transcripts and bank records – some with hundreds of pages – is a marked departure from last year's trial, which collapsed in a hung jury.


Last year's jurors had scant context to help them navigate the mind-numbing array of evidence and keep track of hundreds of Arabic names, leaving the defense team ample room to assert reasonable doubt.

The defense has long acknowledged that their clients sent more than $12 million to the zakat committees. But they say the money did not benefit Hamas. Rather, they say, the money bought much-needed food, school supplies, housing and libraries for Palestinian families and orphans living under Israeli occupation.

Charity groups
To counter that, the government last week called Georgetown University professor and terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, who did not testify last year. He told jurors that "almost without exception," successful terrorist groups throughout history have relied on charitable front groups to raise money and build good will among those they seek to control.

"They don't have the same name as the terrorist group," he said of these front groups. "But the communities know there is this connection."

Prosecutors last week told jurors that Holy Land supported more than 400 Hamas members that Israel deported to southern Lebanon in 1992. Jurors saw a video of several known Hamas deportees huddled in a tent, thanking the Richardson foundation for its support. Some said on tape they worked with the zakat committees to which Holy Land gave money.

Defense attorneys say that most of the government's proof of Hamas' control of zakat committees, including pro-Hamas posters and key chains, comes from the government of Israel – Hamas' sworn enemy. Last week, the defense questioned an Israeli Defense Forces major about armed raids of zakat committee offices and Islamic centers from 2002 to 2004.

Linda Moreno, attorney for Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, last week got the major to say that some of his troops stormed schools to gather their evidence.

The major is one of two Israeli government witnesses testifying under assumed names for security reasons, which defense attorneys say further discredits them.

A second undercover Israeli agent is set to testify in depth about zakat committee links to Hamas next week.

The defense says the zakat committees were established years before Hamas was created in the late 1980s.

Prosecutors say documents and wiretaps show that some of the defendants and their Islamist cohorts worked to put Hamas members on the zakat committee boards.

A 1991 roster seized from a co-conspirator's home referred to some committees as "ours," which the FBI says is a reference to Hamas. Defense attorneys pointed out that Hamas is never mentioned in the roster, whose author is unknown.

A key defense argument is that none of the committees Holy Land supported are on U.S. lists of banned terrorist entities, even today.

They do not have to be, as long as Hamas is banned, testified Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the lists. He also did not testify last year.

Treasury strategy
Trying to keep up with "transformers," or front groups with ever-changing names, "is a task beyond the wise use of resources," he told jurors. Treasury instead targets "umbrella aspects of an organization," which provides "the most bang for the buck" so "we can stop the most money flowing."

Defense attorneys point out that some Islamic groups purportedly linked to Hamas are individually designated as terrorist groups. They also told jurors that Mr. Elashi was among several Muslim leaders who met with Treasury officials after Hamas was banned in 1995, but he got no guidance on which Palestinian groups were off limits for Holy Land's fundraising efforts.
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Link to previous stories in the Dallas Morning News on this topic.