Jury Reaches Verdict in Holy Land Case: Update

Jurors who deliberated 19 days reached a verdict Thursday in the trial of former leaders of a Muslim charity accused of funneling millions of dollars in illegal aid to Middle Eastern terrorists.^[1]

The decision will be made public on Monday, October 22, this is because Federal District Judge A. Joe Fish, who presided over the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development case, was out of town, and the magistrate who took the jury's verdict said he was not legally empowered to read it.^[2]

The defendants could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, after jurors heard two months of FBI and Israeli testimony.^[3] The testimony described thousands of pages of documents and hours of videotapes seized from Holy Land, from former associates of the group, and from Palestinian charities that got money from Holy Land.^[4]

Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the United States. In December 2001, President Bush appeared at a Rose Garden news conference to announce that its assets had been seized and said, ''[t]he net is closing'' on those who finance terrorists.^[5]

The government is asserting that Holy Land funneled more than $12 million to Palestinian schools and charities controlled by Hamas after the U.S. government had already declared Hamas a terrorist group, thus making the asserted support illegal.^[6] The Prosecution’s case relies heavily on thousands of pages of documents such as bank records and on video and audio tapes that showed some of the defendants meeting with Hamas members and supporters.^[7]

Federal criminal defense attorney Douglas McNabb has discussed this case extensively in his terrorism crimes blog. These posts can be found here, here and here.

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^[1] David Koenig, Verdict to be read Monday in trial of Muslim charity, Associated Press Newswire, October 18, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services File.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] David Koenig, Muslim charity trial enters closing stages, Associated Press Newswire, September 17, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.