DALLAS — Closing arguments are to begin today in what is widely seen as the most important terrorism financing trial the U.S. government has ever prosecuted.
After listening to testimony for two months, a federal jury this week will deliberate the fate of five defendants accused of helping the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development funnel millions of dollars to Hamas terrorists overseas.
The allegation of terrorist ties, denied by the defendants, surfaced in December 2001, when President Bush went to the White House Rose Garden and declared Holy Land -- then the nation's largest Islamic charity -- a front for Hamas.
Eight months later, a federal judge upheld the Treasury Department's decision to freeze the foundation's accounts and seize its four offices, including one in San Diego.
For the last five years, authorities have hailed Holy Land's closure as an important victory in the government's battle against terrorism.
The current criminal case in Dallas has offered the first chance for foundation officials to challenge that allegation in court.
At the trial, which took far less time than the six months originally estimated, prosecutors produced thousands of pages of documents that they contended showed how Holy Land sent money it had raised to charities under the control of Hamas. (Hamas was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995.)
To buttress that claim, prosecutors called almost a dozen witnesses, including two Israeli officials who were allowed the extraordinary accommodation of testifying anonymously in a courtroom closed to the general public.
The most important government testimony might have been from an officer with Israel's domestic Shin Bet security agency. Identified only as "Avi," he testified that Holy Land, now defunct, had been part of an international fundraising network for Hamas. He said the money had been surreptitiously provided to Hamas via so-called zakat charity committees that, he said, were widely known to be controlled by terrorists.
His testimony was disputed by two of the five witnesses called by the defense. Edward Abington, former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, testified that he had had daily access to sensitive intelligence including CIA briefings and had never heard that the zakat committees were under the control of Hamas. Professor Nathan Brown of George Washington University testified that Avi's allegations were inaccurate and politically biased.
