Partial Holy Land verdict includes no convictions

[Scurrilous]

Source: Star-Telegram

<snip>

"Three former leaders of a group that was once the nation’s largest Muslim charity have been acquitted on most charges of funneling millions in illegal aid to Middle Eastern terrorists, the Associated Press is reporting.

The federal government was unable to get any convictions against the Holy Land Foundation on many counts this morning in verdicts unsealed in a federal court in Dallas.

But the jury was unable to reach a decision on all counts and shortly after unsealing the verdicts, the judge sent them back to the jury for more deliberations, according to broadcast reports.

The charitable organization based in Richardson had faced 197 count of funding terrorism and it is unclear on how many counts the jury was able to reach a decision."

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/276437.html

[Turbineguy]

1. Hmmm..... I guess the prosecution

must have been the same guys who prosecuted all those organizations feeding money to the IRA too.

[baldguy]

2. Mistrial declared in Muslim charity case

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071022/ap_on_re_us/muslim_charity_trial;_ylt=AkqJxenDUT2uwCsUz3M60Yis0NUE

snip

The outcome came about an hour after a confusing scene in the courtroom, in which three former leaders of the group were initially found not guilty. But then when jurors were polled, three of them said those verdicts were read incorrectly.

Judge Joe A. Fish sent the jury back to resolve the differences, but after about an hour, Fish said he received a note from the jury saying 11 of 12 felt further deliberations will not lead them to reach a unanimous decision.

The jury forewoman said she was surprised by the three jurors' actions.

"When we voted, there was no issue in the vote," she said. "No one spoke up any different. I really don't understand where it is coming from."

end snip


Have the feeling that someone "got" to those three jurors?

[struggle4progress]

3. No Convictions in Trial Against Muslim Charity (NYT)

By LESLIE EATON
Published: October 22, 2007

... The case, involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and five of its backers, is the government’s largest and most complex legal effort to shut down what it contends is American financing for terrorist organizations in the Middle East. President Bush announced he was freezing the charity’s assets in 2001, saying that the radical Islamic group Hamas had “obtained much of the money it pays for murder abroad right here in the United States.”

But at the trial, the government did not allege that the foundation, which was based in a Dallas suburb, paid directly for suicide bombings. Instead, the prosecution said, the foundation supported terrorism by sending more than $12 million to charitable groups, known as zakat committees, which build hospitals and feed the poor.

The prosecution said the committees were controlled by Hamas and contributed to terrorism by helping Hamas spread its ideology and recruit supporters. The government relied on Israeli intelligence agents, using pseudonyms, to testify in support of this theory ...

The case involved a total of 197 counts ... After 19 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted one of the five individual defendants on all but one charge, on which it deadlocked. A majority of the jurors also appeared ready to acquit two other defendants of most charges ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/us/22cnd-holyland.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Scurrilous]

4. Holy Land trial third major setback for prosecutors

<snip>

"The failure to win any convictions against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was the third major setback for federal prosecutors after charging individuals in this country with providing aid to foreign terrorists.

- In 2005, former college professor Sami Al-Arian was acquitted on eight counts of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After a six-month trial, jurors deadlocked on nine other counts. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one count of providing services to members of the terrorist group rather than face a retrial. He was sentenced last year to four years and nine months in prison and will be deported after serving the sentence.

- This year, a jury in Illinois acquitted Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem Ashqar of operating a terrorist recruiting and financing cell. Salah was sentenced in July to 21 months in federal prison for lying in a civil lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by parents of an American teenager murdered in Israel by Hamas gunmen — Holy Land was a defendant.

- On Monday, a federal court jury in Dallas failed to reach a verdict after a two-month trial in which Holy Land was accused of aiding the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The judge declared a mistrial, and the lead prosecutor said he expected the government to retry the case. One of five defendants was acquitted on 31 of 32 counts against him but could be retried on that single count."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5235568.html