US charity found guilty of funding terror

A Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted of funnelling millions of dollars to the

Palestinian militant group Hamas.

US District Judge Jorge Solis announced the guilty verdicts in Dallas, Texas, 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.

It was the biggest terrorism financing case since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The convictions follow the collapse of Holy Land’s first trial last year and defeats in other cases the government tried to build. President George Bush had personally announced the freezing of Holy Land’s assets in 2001, calling the action “another step in the war on terrorism”.

After yesterday’s verdict, family members showed little visible reaction until the jury left. Several women sobbed loudly.

“My dad’s not a criminal,” one distraught woman said. Court staff told the family to calm her down and as family members rushed her out of the court, she said: “They treated him like an animal.”

Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land’s former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially-designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.

Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organisation. Holy Land

itself was convicted of all 32 counts.

A sentencing date has not been set, but the punishments could be steep. Supporting a terrorist organisation carries a maximum 15-year sentence on each count; money laundering carries a maximum 20 years on each conviction.

Judge Solis ordered the Holy Land leaders to be remanded in custody, citing the long prison terms they may face and their ties to the Middle East.

Holy Land was accused of giving more than $12m (€9.35m) to support Hamas. The seven-week retrial ran about as long as the original, which ended in October 2007 when a judge declared a mistrial on most charges.

Holy Land was not accused of violence. The US government said the Richardson, Texas-based charity financed schools, hospitals and welfare programmes controlled by Hamas in areas ravaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US designated Hamas a terrorist organisation in 1995 and again in 1997, making contributions to the group illegal.