U.S. federal prosecutors in Dallas, Texas began their closing arguments in the criminal re-trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (a/k/a ‘HLF’) and individual defendants, accusing them of acting as illegal fundraisers for Hamas, and a conduit for paying families of Hamas terrorists money after terrorist suicide attacks committed by family members.
The first trial took place in 2007. It resulted in a mistrial in the criminal case against almost all the suspects, except for Mohammad el-Mezain who was acquitted on all charges except for one count of conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors spelled out their arguments for the current case in their trial brief, maintaining that they would show how:
“the defendants, through the HLF, were engaged in a conspiracy to support Hamas through their membership in the Palestine Committee, an organization created by the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood to assist Hamas, which itself is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Along with the HLF, whose function was to raise funds on behalf of Hamas, the Palestine Committee oversaw the Islamic Association for Palestine (‘IAP’), the United Association for Studies & Research (‘UASR’) and, later on, the Council on American Islamic Relations (‘CAIR’).”
In short, they hope to prove that a small number of Islamic organizations that purported to be charities with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status were acting as conduits for Hamas’ terrorist financing. The U.S. Attorney’s laid out detailed wire transfers by people acting on behalf of HLF that went to Hamas-run institutions in Gaza and the West Bank that, according to testimony, were actually conduits for a portion of Hamas’ outlawed terror financing efforts
The Dallas Morning News has ongoing coverage of the case. Last week the newspaper linked to Hamas posters introduced into evidence at trial that were printed following the terrorist group’s suicide bombers’ (whom Hamas actually calls ‘martyrs’) following their terrorist attacks, with corresponding translations.
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