2008 Retrial; Convictions
The federal government began a retrial on August 18, 2008.
On November 24, 2008, the government obtained guilty verdicts against the Holy Land Foundation and five individual defendants in the retrial. Holy Land was found guilty of giving more than $12 million to support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the US designated as a terrorist organization in 1995, and made supporting the group illegal.
The jury found against the Holy Land Foundation on all 108 charges. The charges included conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
"Today's verdicts are important milestones in America's efforts against financiers of terrorism", Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security, said after the trial. "This prosecution demonstrates our resolve to ensure that humanitarian relief efforts are not used as a mechanism to disguise and enable support for terrorist groups."
The five convicted individuals were Ghassan Elashi, former CEO Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad El-Mezain.
- Abu-Baker was sentenced to 65 years.
- Elashi, also a member of the founding Board of Directors of the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was sentenced to 65 years.
- El-Mezain, former endowments director, received 15 years.
Because of the potential lengthy sentences for the criminal convictions, the individual defendants were remanded into custody without bail pending any appeal.
A 2011 NPR report claimed some of the people associated with this group were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit.
In May 2012, Elashi, Baker, Abdulqader, and Odeh filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, challenging their convictions on Sixth Amendment grounds and thereby requesting that the high court review their convictions. The defendants assert that the prosecution's use of two anonymous witnesses during their trial was impermissible as a matter of law.
On October 29, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States denied their appeal.
Read more about this topic: Holy Land Foundation For Relief And Development
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