Do you agree with the 65-year sentence for Muslim charity leaders or not?

[sixmile]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090527/ts_alt_afp/usmideasthamastrial

'Two leaders of what was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States were sentenced to 65 years in jail Wednesday for supporting Palestinian militants.'

snip

'The Justice Department vowed in October 2007 to retry the five Holy Land leaders after jurors could not agree on verdicts on nearly 200 charges, and a new jury was seated in mid-September.
Prosecutors took about two months to present evidence that Holy Land was created in the late 1980s to gather donations from deep-pocketed American Muslims to support the then-newly formed Hamas movement resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.'

[roody]

1. I do not agree with it.

[depakid]

2. America loves its draconian punishments

Must have bigger and bigger pounds of flesh.

[Milo_Bloom]

3. Don't know enough details to be sure.

Couple of things from the article jumped out.

"Jurors returned guilty verdicts on 108 charges of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering and tax fraud."

and

"Prosecutors did not accuse the charity of directly financing or being involved in terror. Instead, they said humanitarian aid was used to promote Hamas and allow it to divert existing funds to militant activities. "

Money Laundering and tax fraud are seperate from the "support to terrorist" things and if they allowed people to launder money through their organization and failed to properly report income... that is against the law.

Now, for the "support to terrorists"... for me it call comes down to knowledge. If they KNEW money they were giving was being used to carry out attacks, but they were raising that money under the guise of "humanitarian support".. then YES.

However, if they THOUGHT they were raising money purely for humanitarian purposes, and it was being diverted (without their knowledge or consent) for nefarious purposes.. then NO.

[EFerrari]

5. Amy Goodman's reporting, which I linked below, shows that

the US government provided funds to some of the very same groups. This whole case stinks of Bush's war on terra.

[Mugweed]

14. Of course

Because the USA does not and has never done the same thing. Look, I'm just too effing lazy to provide all the links. Let's not pretend that we're not fucking over a couple of dupes for the very same thing that our own government has done for decades....I'm REALLY sure these people are very dangerous and need priority attention. Somehow I think that my neighbor's waste of water by leaving his hose on is actually more important than this.

[EFerrari]

4. Here's Amy's report from yesterday:

Despite No Links to Violence, Founders of Muslim Charity Sentenced to Lengthy Terms for Donations to Needy Palestinians in Occupied Territories


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.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/29/holy_land

Audio, video, transcript at link

[sixmile]

6. The verdict is being appealed, I assume?

Didn't listen to audio. Dial up archaic

[EFerrari]

7. Yes. There is a transcript at the link, too, if you'd like to scan it. n/t

[sixmile]

10. Thanks I read it, and a couple points stick out like sore thumbs:

From the Defense Attorney, Nancy Hollander:

'...the United States government, through USAID, continued to give money to the same charities for years after Holy Land was closed.'

'...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.'

'...these people were convicted because they were Palestinians.'

[EFerrari]

13. The whole thing stinks so badly. Like all the other Bush ops. n/t

[Turbineguy]

8. Hamas and Hezbollah

and whoever else, do humanitarian work because it's good press and brings them benefits.

If I had 12 million to give out in a place like that I'd be sure it went to the widows and orphans.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Don't know enough about it, but most likely not.

[anonymous171]

11. No. But seriously, giving money to either side simply exacerbates the problem. nt

[madrchsod]

12. the saudi`s were doing the doing the same kind of scam the balkans

the boys in bridgeport il were under investigation by Fitzgerald. the day before the raid someone called the new york times and they called the saud`is. when Fitzgerald and crew came the next day...the place was cleaned.
ever wonder why fitzgerald had it in for judy and her sidekick?

[Ani Yun Wiya]

15. How can anyone agree with an injustice ?

n/t