|
Los Angeles Times – June 18, 2006
Questions arise over case against Islamic charity
Federal prosecutors rely heavily on Israeli intelligence
By Greg Krikorian
DALLAS — The Justice Department's criminal case against officials of the largest U.S.-based Islamic charity relies more heavily than previously known on Israeli intelligence, court records show.
President Bush ordered the charity shut down in December 2001, declaring from the Rose Garden that the Holy Land Foundation was raising money in the U.S. that "pays for murder abroad" by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
However, the pending criminal case will place a higher burden of proof on the claims than required for the president's executive action. And questions about the credibility of Israeli intelligence are raising fresh doubts about the Justice Department's case.
Disputes already have surfaced over assertions of political influence, interrogation methods and allegedly faulty translations.
Federal prosecutors, accusing charity officials of aiding terrorists, have disclosed receiving 21 binders of documents from the Israeli government, according to records originally sealed by the court. The binders contain an estimated 8,000 pages that, in sheer volume, dwarf earlier shared intelligence — including Israeli military and police reports, translated interrogation transcripts and financial analyses.
Previous intelligence from Israel was a factor in 2001 when the White House, with great fanfare, froze assets of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, based in Richardson, Texas.
Those claims, however, were never subjected to the kind of rigorous legal challenge expected in a criminal trial.
Seven former Holy Land officials, six of them American citizens, are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, sending money, goods and services to terrorists through Palestinian organizations controlled by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group since 1995.
They have denied assisting Hamas.
The case figures to hinge on the government's ability to prove, largely with Israeli-provided information, that the defendants knowingly supported groups tied to Hamas. Israel's prominent investigative role appears to be unprecedented in post-Sept. 11 terrorism cases.
Defense lawyers already have argued that allegations against Holy Land are unwarranted and influenced by political pressure from Tel Aviv. Bush's presidential order closing down the charity came on the eve of a White House visit by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The case also is being questioned by outside lawyers and legal scholars, warning that the government's heavy reliance on foreign-sourced intelligence could be a problem for prosecutors. Significant legal challenges are predicted over differing evidence-gathering techniques, language barriers and alleged investigative bias.
"What really makes me nervous is the foreign translations," said Washington lawyer Victoria Toensing, a former deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration. "Nuances are important in languages, so things can get lost in translations."
Toensing said dependence on another country's evidence in a criminal case was fraught with potential problems. "I would only want it as frosting on the cake," said the former prosecutor, who said she had not reviewed the Holy Land case.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley added that long-standing tensions between Israel and Hamas could taint the evidence. "It is always dangerous to rely on intelligence from [a country] that is at ground zero in a dispute," he said.
Turley also called the case "one of the most troubling since 9/11," in part because the original action shutting down the charity required no evidentiary hearings to prove any of the alleged terrorist ties……
Contents of the evidence binders provided by Israel have not been disclosed, but court records make clear that they are considered sensitive.
During one hearing, for example, prosecutors revealed that the Israeli government retained control over what specific intelligence materials the U.S. could use publicly. And Justice Department lawyers traveled to Israel this year to negotiate what could be disclosed in court, prosecutors acknowledged.
The case already was complicated by reliance on classified information developed by U.S. intelligence sources. Earlier this year, the government's case was stung by the unintended release of some of those classified documents to defense lawyers. A bid by prosecutors to compel return of those records was rejected by a federal judge.
The degree of secrecy surrounding prosecution of Holy Land makes it difficult to assess the strength of the government's case.
Court records available to the public show that Israeli intelligence is central to a claim that the charity specifically earmarked money for the families of suicide bombers. That allegation was based on records seized in an Israeli raid on Holy Land's Jerusalem offices a decade ago……
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-holy18jun18,1,2606858.story
|
