Acquitals in Hamas Trial
By Matthew Levitt
After 14 days of deliberation, a Chicago jury acquited Mohamed Salah and Abdelhalim Ashqar of charges they were involved in a racketeering conspiracy by financing and supporting Hamas terrorism. The two were accused of laundering funds and providing recruits for Hamas but were convicted only on minor charges (obstruction of justice and criminal contempt).
The case highlights the difficulty of prosecuting individuals for their support to terrorist groups when that support is conducted under the cover of humanitarian or political activity. By nature, terrorists and their supporters are engaged in covert activity, usually under the cover or guise of some more legitimate, over activity. That cover provides operatives day jobs, income, and - if caught - cause for "reasonable doubt." While Salah and Ashqar's lawyers portrayed the ruling as "a great day for justice," the reality is that two major Hamas activists evaded justice.
Consider, for example, an FBI affidavit from 1998 noted that Mr. Salah facilitated Hamas terrorist training in the U.S. that "included mixing poisons, development of chemical weapons, and preparing remote control explosive devices." The affidavit also said Mr. Salah gave a Hamas member more than $48,000 to buy weapons for use in Hamas attacks.
In a 1994 telephone conversation secretly recorded by the FBI, Sheik Jamil Hamami, a Hamas political leader in the West Bank, told Mr. Ashqar and a fellow Hamas member in Yemen: "We ... will act to make [the peace process] fail too. Operations [of] particular types will take place to shake this self-rule administration," according to the FBI.
As prosecutors demonstrated at trial, Ashqar received thousands of dollars from senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook while he was a graduate student at the University of Mississippi in the early 1990s. He passed this cash along to Hamas terrorists in what amounted to a classic money laundering operation. Prosecutors also demonstrated that Salah delivered $230,000 from accounts Marzook controlled to Israel in January 1993. When he was arrested officials found $97,000 in cash in his East Jerusalem hotel room. (Marzook was also charged in the case and is still listed as a fugitive from justice. He is believed to reside in Syria).