Holy Land Foundation For Relief And Development

A Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted Monday of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas -- a long-sought victory in the government's 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.

The government's biggest terrorism-financing trial to date opened Tuesday with a federal prosecutor charging that officials of a now-shuttered Islamic charity for years hid their real mission: supporting the violent actions of the Palestinian group Hamas. Assistant U.S. Atty. James T. Jacks said the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and its five former officials on trial raised and distributed millions of dollars for the militant organization.

A key witness in the government's prosecution of five men for alleged links to terrorism testified Wednesday that overseas charities had openly served as an important and reliable source of funding for Hamas. But on cross-examination, a defense attorney seemed to undercut former Bush administration official Matthew Levitt by getting him to acknowledge that he had visited just one of the many charities that he said supported the militant Palestinian organization.

dallas -- Rebuffing defense arguments, a federal judge on Monday agreed that an Israeli intelligence officer can testify anonymously and in a closed courtroom in the trial of five men accused of funneling money to the radical Islamic group Hamas through a now-shuttered Muslim charity in the United States. The decision by U.S. District Judge A.

Amid extraordinary secrecy and security, the Israeli government took a key role Wednesday in helping the U.S. Justice Department prosecute American citizens accused of supporting anti-Israeli terrorists. An Israeli intelligence official testifying under an assumed name in a closed courtroom told a federal jury here that a now-defunct Islamic charity in the United States was part of a global fundraising network that helped finance terrorism by the Palestinian group Hamas.

An Israeli intelligence agent whose earlier testimony linked a U.S.-based Islamic charity to Hamas acknowledged Thursday that none of the overseas charities it supported has appeared among hundreds of names on U.S. government terrorist lists. The testimony seemed to cast doubt on a central element of the government's criminal case against former officials of the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

The Justice Department's decision not to call additional witnesses in its prosecution of an Islamic charity for alleged ties to terrorism suggests it is resting its case on the strength of contested documents and the testimony of FBI agents and Israeli security officials. The U.S. District Court trial resumes Tuesday in Dallas with the defense beginning presentation of its evidence.

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.

Federal prosecutors mounted their final courtroom assault on former officials of a defunct Islamic charity on Monday, arguing that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development funneled millions of dollars to support terrorists in the guise of helping needy Palestinian families. "For 13 years, the defendants deceived the American public into believing" Holy Land was "a good charity," Assistant U.S. Atty. Barry Jonas told jurors here.

Former officials of a Texas-based Islamic charity, each charged with supporting terrorists, were guilty of little more than criticizing Israel and its treatment of Palestinians, lawyers for the five men said Tuesday. "This is political speech," defense lawyer Marlo P. Cadeddu said in closing arguments. "And the First Amendment reaches . . . its zenith when it protects political speech."