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Chicago Tribune - December 13, 2006
Hamas-case prosecution concludes
By Jeff Coen
After presenting evidence for the better part of two months, federal prosecutors Tuesday rested their case against two men accused of activities supporting the militant Islamic Palestinian group Hamas.
The prosecutors ended the first phase of the case with more testimony from FBI agents who walked jurors through phone and bank records allegedly linking defendants Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem Ashqar to Hamas leadership and to each other.
Salah is a Bridgeview businessman accused of funding terrorism through the group, and Ashqar, a former university professor from Virginia, is accused as an organizer.
The documents allegedly show money moving between top Hamas leaders and Salah, including more than $1 million in deposits in the early 1990s.
Defense lawyers have countered with the argument that all of the alleged activities in the case occurred before the U.S. officially designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995, and that money was used for education and charitable work.
Prosecutors have alleged Salah used his status as a U.S. citizen to travel to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where he transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to militants. Salah spent several years in prison in Israel after he was arrested in the region in 1993 and accused of bringing funds into the occupied territories.
Salah's alleged statements while he was in custody have been at the center of the prosecution's case. The government contends Salah freely admitted he was a top member of the movement and offered secret information, such as the location of a murdered Israeli soldier's body.
The defense has argued that Salah was tortured and that any statements were coerced.
The trial has seen the unprecedented testimony of Israeli agents in an American courtroom. Testifying under aliases, the agents told jurors that Salah was treated well during questioning.
The government also took the unusual step of calling to the witness stand former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was allowed to witness Israeli agents interviewing Salah in 1993. Miller testified a month ago that Salah seemed comfortable and that he boasted about Hamas operations.
Ashqar's attorney, William Moffitt, has argued that the U.S. is punishing his client because Ashqar rebuffed CIA attempts to recruit him as a spy.
AP adds:
Among other things, (U.S. District Judge Amy) St. Eve is expected to hear arguments on whether to allow Salah's chief defense counsel, Michael E. Deutsch, to call as a witness an expert on U.S. lobbying groups supporting Israel on Capitol Hill.
Norman Finkelstein of Chicago's DePaul University, took the stand Tuesday night to give the judge a sampling of his expertise. He claimed Israel has sought to influence American reporters and the result has been a bias in favor of that nation in the U.S. news media.
Deutsch said after court that he wants jurors to hear from Finkelstein as a counter to prosecution witness Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter, who testified that she saw Salah being interrogated.
Finkelstein said Israel has tortured Palestinian detainees.
Salah claims he was tortured by Israel's Shin Bet security service into admitting that he was aiding Hamas while Miller said he appeared "jaunty" at the interrogation and that she saw no evidence that he was being tortured.
Prosecutors led off the trial in October by calling two Shin Bet interrogators who testified under aliases in a courtroom that had been cleared of spectators that Salah was not mistreated by their organization.
Deutsch said he hopes to call two witnesses who are experts on Shin Bet interrogation methods and Israeli human rights attorney Avigdor Feldman, who represented Salah before a military tribunal in that country.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0612130062dec13,1,4678046.story
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