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International News Updates |
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8 June 2009 Five founders of the Holy Land
Foundation, once the nation's largest Muslim charity,
have received prison terms of up to sixty-five years
on charges of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas.
The five were never accused of supporting violence and
were convicted for funding charities that aided needy
Palestinians. The government's case relied on Israeli
intelligence as well as disputed documents and
electronic surveillance gathered by the FBI over a
span of fifteen years. We
speak to Noor Elashi, daughter of Ghassan Elashi, the
chair of the Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to
sixty-five years; and Nancy Hollander, a defense
attorney who represented former Holy Land CEO Shukri
Abu Baker. [includes rush transcript]
JUAN GONZALEZ: Five founders of a Muslim charity have
been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in a
controversial case that began nearly ten years ago.
The Holy Land Foundation, based in a Dallas suburb,
was the biggest Muslim charity in the United States
before the Bush administration shut it down in 2001.
Its five founders were convicted last November on
charges of funneling money to the Palestinian group
Hamas. The US government declared Hamas a terrorist
organization in 1995.
It was the second trial against the Holy Land
Foundation's five leaders after the first ended in a
mistrial. The government's case relied on Israeli
intelligence as well as disputed documents and
electronic surveillance gathered by the FBI over a
span of fifteen years.
AMY GOODMAN: Defendants Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu
Baker each received sixty-five-year prison sentences.
At his sentencing hearing, Elashi said, "Nothing was
more rewarding than…turning the charitable
contributions of American Muslims into life assistance
for the Palestinians. We gave the essentials of life:
oil, rice, flour. The occupation was providing them
with death and destruction. " Another defendant,
Mohammad El-Mezain, was sentenced to fifteen years in
prison. He was found guilty of supporting Hamas but
acquitted on thirty-one other charges. Volunteer
fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader was sentenced to twenty
years in prison. And the fifth defendant, Abdulrahman
Odeh, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. All
five defendants plan to file appeals.
We go now to Dallas, where we're joined by Noor Elashi.
She's the daughter of Ghassan Elashi, the chair of the
Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to sixty-five
years.
And joining us from her home in Albuquerque via
Democracy Now! video stream is Nancy Hollander, a
defense attorney who represented former Holy Land CEO
Shukri Abu Baker.
We invited Jim Jacks, the lead prosecutor in the case,
on the show, but his office declined.
Noor, let's begin with you. When the sentencing
happened, your dad got sixty-five years in prison.
Your response?
NOOR ELASHI: Well, thank you, first of all, Amy, for
having me on the
show.My response to that is basically, to me, on
Wednesday, the Holy Land Five, my father and the Holy
Land Five, became the Nelson Mandelas of the
twenty-first century. They're merely political
prisoners caught in this disillusioned web, widely
known by the Bush administration as the war on terror.
Sixty-five years seems like a big number, but it's
really nothing but a number to me. I do—I have faith
that during the appeal process, under a less
politicized Justice Department under the new
administration, that truth will come out. And truth is
a much stronger, way more powerful—truth is basically
way more powerful than the prosecution' s ongoing
tactic of fear. And truth will come out under this
less politicized Justice Department.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Noor Elashi, tell us about your father.
When did he come to the United States, and why did he
decide to found the Holy Land Foundation?
NOOR ELASHI: My dad came to the US in the early '80s.
He got his master's degree from the University of
Miami and thus started a family. And, you know, in the
late '80s, during the Intifada, the uprising, he saw,
like many Americans, images on television that just
really went straight to his heart. And he, being
Palestinian, originally Palestinian, took it to heart
and felt like, you know,
he had to do something. And that is, after seeing
thousands of—the images of thousands of trees being
uprooted, you know, many political prisoners in
Palestine, many homes being demolished, he said
there's definitely a need there, a humanitarian need.
There's an economic crisis. And therefore, he and a
few—a couple other people founded the Holy Land
Foundation, which, like you mentioned earlier, became
the largest Muslim charity in this country until the
Bush administration shut it down.
AMY GOODMAN: Nancy Hollander, you're the attorney for
the former Holy Land CEO, Holy Land Foundation CEO
Shukri Abu Baker. Just looking at the time line for
the whole Holy Land case: you have January '89, the
organization that was renamed Holy Land Foundation is
founded by Noor's father, Ghassan Elashi, and others
to assist Palestinians affected by the Intifada, '89;
1992, Holy Land moves its headquarters to Richardson,
Texas; '95, the US government declares Hamas a
terrorist organization; '99, the government says it's
investigating
alleged financial ties between Holy Land and Hamas
dating back to 1996. Explain this and what evidence
the government presented on the connection between
Holy Land and Hamas.
NANCY HOLLANDER: Well, the government's
allegations—and this is extremely important, Amy—the
government's allegations all along and what the jury
found was that Holy Land provided charity. Every dime
went to charity. It went through sometimes directly to
individuals and sometimes through charity committees,
which are called Zakat committees. This is part of
Islamic law that Muslims must tithe, and they often do
it through these committees. These committees are
throughout the Muslim world and in Palestine. And Holy
Land gave money, large sums of money, to these Zakat
committees in all these local communities, and then
that was distributed to individuals, mostly orphans or
families in need.
There was never any allegation that any money went any
where other than to charity. The government's position
was that these particular charities were associated
with or controlled by Hamas. And it's important to
understand that the United States government, through
USAID, continued to give money to the same charities
for years after Holy Land was closed. But that's what
the allegation was all the way along. Although the
government spent a great deal of time in the
trial talking about and showing the jury horrific
pictures of violent acts that Hamas did, our clients
were not accused of nor convicted of one single act of
violence.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what they were convicted of.
NANCY HOLLANDER: They were convicted of providing
material support to Hamas, which includes, under the
US statutes, providing charity to associations and
organizations that are associated with or controlled
by Hamas. The issue of whether these particular
charities were controlled by Hamas, we believe to this
day that they were not. And the only evidence that
they were came from a secret witness from Israel who
claimed to be a lawyer with the Israeli Shin Bet, but
we
were never able to learn anything about him, because
he was presented with a pseudonym, and we weren't
allowed to know anything about him.
AMY GOODMAN: The Shin Bet being the Israeli
intelligence.
NANCY HOLLANDER: Yes, yes, correct. And that's where
they got the
information. The government also claimed that by
providing charity, Holy Land was assisting Hamas in
winning the hearts and minds of the people. There was
no evidence of that, of course. And Holy Land was
closed in 2001. And although the government tried to
make the leap to Hamas winning a large number of seats
in the election in 2006, that was five years later.
And the government never had an answer, during trial
or at sentencing when we brought this up, to explain
that
USAID gave money, for example, $47,000 to the Qalqilya
Zakat Committee in December of 2004, and why that
didn't contribute to the hearts and minds theory, if
in fact that theory makes any sense, which
historically and politically it doesn't.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Nancy Hollander, the first trial in
2007 ended in a mistrial, and there was the second one
that ended in conviction. Any sense on your part what
swayed the jury in the second trial? And also, were
you surprised by the severity of the sentences?
NANCY HOLLANDER: Well, on your first question, the
government always benefits when it gets a second
chance. It has seen the defense. It had another year
to gather more evidence, to look through the ten years
of FISA wiretaps that our clients were never allowed
to look at, by the way, even though they were their
statements, to attempt to find more evidence. All they
really found, because there was no evidence of
anything other than charity, all they found was more
violence, and they put on more violence.
In terms of the sentence, no, I wasn't surprised at
it, but I was horrified by it, to the thought that
somebody gets sixty-five years for providing charity
is really shameful, and I believe this case will go
down in history, as have others, like Korematsu, for
example, as a shameful day. We have all filed—all the
defendants have filed their notices of appeal, and all
will be appealed. And we believe we will be vindicated
on appeal, because this was a grossly unfair trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Nancy Hollander, you used the
argument—you compared—you looked at the case of Ali
Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to persuade the judge to go easy
on your client, Shukri Abu Baker, saying that he
pleaded guilty in April to one count of conspiracy to
provide material support to al-Qaeda. You said, "This
is a man who admits he came to the US as a sleeper
agent, and the government believes fifteen years is
sufficient." The judge retorted, "Raising millions of
dollars to fund terrorism, that's a different
situation." He said, "Al-Marri is
an example of someone who wanted to commit an act of
terrorism. As bad as that is, this is support over the
years." And he sentenced your client, Abu Baker, to
sixty-five years. Your response?
NANCY HOLLANDER: It's just beyond me. It's remarkable.
My client was
convicted of providing charity. There was not, in ten
years of wiretapping his home, his office, looking at
his faxes, listening to everything he said, there was
not one word out of his mouth about violence to anyone
or about support for Hamas. He provided charity.
That's what he was convicted of. And to say that
someone or these people who provide charity should get
a sentence six, you know, four or five times longer
than someone who professes to come to the United
States with a purpose in mind that's clearly violence
shows essentially that these people were convicted
because they were Palestinians.
JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask Noor Elashi—you,
yourself, are a journalist. Could you comment about
the media's coverage, the mainstream media coverage,
of this trial and how that affected the atmosphere
around the trial?
NOOR ELASHI: Yeah. I'm actually highly disappointed,
but I'm not surprised. From the very beginning of the
case, the media coverage has been very biased,
including many Israeli bloggers and people obviously
anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian in the news articles.
For example, on sentencing day, I went to the New York
Times website, the LA Times, the Washington Post, saw
nothing. I mean, the Associated Press was there. But
overall, this definitely—this case, from the very
beginning, the arrests, the first trial, the second
trial, I think deserves a lot more attention.
And, Amy, you one time said in one of your—in your
book tour, I believe, that Americans are sympathetic
people. And I do honestly believe that. And I think
that if this case were to be covered more widely and
received better coverage, I feel like Americans will
sympathize and there will be an outcry, not only from
Americans, but just an international outcry.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you able to see your father in jail?
NOOR ELASHI: Yes, I am. We are able to visit him once
a week. And actually, the way that's set up, and this
was also set up on purpose, the families are not
allowed to see the defendants all at the same time.
They've set it up in different times. So, when I go
see my dad, I'm not really allowed to see anybody
else, any of the other defendants or their families.
They set it up in a way where we can only see our
father that one time. But he's a very strong person.
As I sat there on Wednesday watching him—
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
NOOR ELASHI: OK, he's a very strong person, and I just
really admire him. And he's my hero.
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