To be honest, I was really starting to lose faith in America after seeing it actually elect B. Hussein Obama as President. I still can't figure out what the heck they were thinking when they did that. But it seems that a portion of America still has some working mental facilities, as five (5) former leaders and the Holy Land Foundation itself have indeed, been convicted. After a mistrial having been declared in early October, and a few other defeats, a successful ending has come seven weeks, (with eight days worth of deliberation,) later.
As found on WJZ in Baltimore; DALLAS (AP) ― A Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted Monday of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, finally handing the government a signature victory in its fight against terrorism funding. U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis announced the guilty verdicts on all 108 counts on the eighth day of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the nation's largest Muslim charity. It was the biggest terrorism financing case since the attacks of Sept. 11.
108 counts..... there's a lot of time stacked up there. As yet, a sentencing date hasn't been scheduled, so stand by for that. I'm wondering if perhaps we might have an "incident" occur at that time, as we've seen happen in other parts of the world during sentencing.
These are the basics of how the charges were dealt out;
Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud. Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Holy Land itself was convicted of all 32 counts.
For those who aren't aware, HAMAS has been designated as a terrorist organization since back in 1995. It was re-designated as such again in 1997. Contributing to groups like this is illegal. These folks were doing it right here on American soil. To a combined over time total of almost $12 million dollars. It wasn't until December of 2001 that The Holy Land Foundation was raided and shut down. While the charity was not directly supporting the violence, the money they were providing through fraud and the like, went to HAMAS controlled locales such as schools, hospitals and social welfare programs. It was here that the violent ideology was spread. Prosecutor Barry Jonas described the process to jurors as it being a "womb to the tomb" process.
The success can be partially attributed to the more narrow scope taken by prosecutors this second time around. The previous failure observers reported, was bloated and difficult for jurors to follow. The second attempt was streamlined with almost 60 of the charges having been dropped. Prosecutors also provided what could be described as a "road map" for jurors to follow the money trail. Smart move me thinks.
Pop in on the WJZ article for more details, as well as a few of the following links;
1 comments:
Lucky the district judge was in Texas. I hate to think what would happen if they were prosecuted in a "blue" state.
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