HLF Trial Update: Digging in the Dirt
By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
DALLAS - Like any new homeowner, Marcial Peredo had some ideas on landscaping his new house in Falls Church, Va. And, like a lot of homeowners, he hired a crew to do the heavier work.
That home improvement project became an issue Wednesday in the Hamas-support trial of five former officials of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). Workers working in a corner of his property with a Bobcat tractor unearthed some black tapes, Peredo said. He collected nearly three dozen in all, tossing them in a trash bag.
"I was going to throw them out," Peredo testified. "I was speaking to my neighbors and heard the house [had been] under surveillance."
Peredo bought the house from a man named Fawaz Mushtaha, an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF case, identified by prosecutors as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee in America. He didn't know that, but after hearing the house was being watched, Peredo said he pulled the bag out of the garbage can and "decided to call a friend of mine in Homeland Security to ask what I should do."
He took two tapes to his friend and then heard from FBI agents a few weeks later. They took the rest of the videos as well as finding some more. Agents also seized things from old grill on the property, including "cases, a burnt cell phone, a packet of half burnt maps and money," Peredo said.
Defense attorneys had no questions for Peredo.
For the entire story, visit the IPT's website.
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