Eye Witness to the Holy Land Foundation Re-Trial, Week 4

October 19, 2008
HLF Trial
Update & Prayer Points

WEEK FOUR: Oct 14-17
Beyond a REASONABLE Doubt

The government continued to lay a solid foundation of evidence against the defendants in the 4th week of the Holy Land Foundation retrial showing ties of the individual defendants to the Hamas terrorist group dating back as far as the 1980’s. The intimidation factor is increasing, however, as the courtroom and overflow room has become packed 98% with supporters of the HLF and Hamas.

It is unreasonable to think that in 1995 when President Bill Clinton issued the first Executive Order naming Hamas as a terrorist organization and restricting U.S. residents from interaction with Hamas, that the defendants swore off their allegiance to Hamas. The reason for Clinton’s action was because Hamas is and always has been one of those Islamist Palestinian terror groups that refuse any peaceful negotiation with Israel. Hamas rejects the “Two State Solution” maintaining that the only Islamist option is for Israel to be wiped off the map. It is literally against their religion – or rather, to be more precise, it is against the Islamist interpretation of the Islamic religion.

One of the points that have not been adequately explained in this trial - although it allows huge wiggle-room for the defense - is explaining the political dynamic between the secular Fatah and the Islamist Hamas.

Defense attorneys have brought in testimony to explain away the close family relations of several of the defendants to the highest leaders of Hamas like Khalid Meshaal and Moussa Abu Marzook. In questioning they have had government witnesses admit that it is common in Palestinian families for one family member to be Hamas while another close family member to be in Fatah. That is the simple fact unfettered by the underlying dynamic of the past relationship between the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah and Hamas. Further, that explanation cannot be applied to these defendants and their Hamas leader relatives, whose Hamas affiliation has been well documented by the government for several decades past.

This is one of the complicated realities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that the government would do well to bring in to testimony. For the fact is that through most of the years even though Hamas was a separate entity from Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (which Fatah is a branch of), Hamas was always deeply allied with the PA and Fatah against their common enemy, Israel.

Where it suited both of their goals – and this would be the majority of the time – the two groups allied together against Israel. If Arafat wanted to apply pressure to force concessions by Israel and still maintain the illusion of “clean hands” among world governments, he could always give the nod to Hamas on terror attacks denying any control over them.

When Arafat died, however, the power struggle for control of the Palestinian street broke out in a real rivalry between Hamas and the PA/Fatah. Before Arafat’s death the PA/Fatah and Hamas were very much friendly “rivals” with the only real separation between them being the means each side believed was most effective to the same end. They were content most of the time to work in coordination with each other which is why in one immediate family the father might support Arafat’s PA/Fatah and the son participate as an activist in Hamas. It is not such a ‘family-friendly’ rivalry these days…and I won’t go into the reasons here for the sake of brevity.

Nevertheless, that family-friendly scenario is not what is happening in the family relationships of the Holy Land Foundation defendants and their relatives in the leadership of Hamas. At no time since the 1980’s have the Islamist HLF defendants been advocates and supporters of Fatah but they have consistently voiced support and done activities on behalf of Hamas. There was no sudden change from their position when the U.S. outlawed dealings with Hamas in 1995 and 1997. It is a ‘sleight of hand’ explanation that the defense is giving the jury on this and the only reason I can see that the government has not challenged that is in the difficulty of explaining the political dynamic of the complex relationship between Hamas and the PA/Fatah.

Pray that the government will remove this camouflage of deception.

HLF Security-Measures Testimony
One of the documents introduced into evidence this week was a security procedures document written in Arabic and seized by the FBI in a raid on the defendants’ offices. The security procedures (translated into English if you scroll down Infocom Search 35) was covered by the government prosecutor with a lead agent in that investigation, FBI Special Agent Robert Miranda.

The range of security measures advised in the document would be highly unusual for a real charity group, nevertheless defense attorneys countered with questioning the FBI agent about several examples where the defendants had not followed security procedures….like that could not be chalked up to sloppiness or even arrogance about not getting caught by the sleeping giant.

Pray that the jury will not accept flimsy excuses as “reasonable doubt”.

The Daughter Fills the Courtroom
On October 9th, the daughter of Ghassan Elashi, Noor, who is a spokeswoman for the defendants and a reporter on leave from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, issued an appeal for more supporters to come to the trial. Here is an excerpt:

"During the past three weeks, I have felt my heart shatter a few times as I witnessed prosecutors use vindictive approaches such as character assassination, fear-mongering and guilt by association as an attempt to convict my dad.

"Sitting in the courtroom, I've felt my blood boil and freeze and boil again in a few seconds time. And as I looked behind me, my eyes scanning the room in search for faces of encouragement and moral support, I found that it was mostly empty with the majority of the benches unoccupied."

Her appeal has been answered to the point that by this past Friday (10/17) the large court room was filled to capacity and the smaller overflow viewing courtroom on the 16th floor was near capacity by 10 AM. Few non-HLF supporters were able to hold seats in the courtroom on the day when a former HLF representative delivered damaging testimony about the HLF-Hamas connection.

Here are a few problems I see with that state of affairs.

First of all, when I got up to the 16th floor viewing room it was packed with adult Muslim men. There was no U.S. Marshal posted in the courtroom itself, although from time to time different marshals would come in and look around. Not the most comfortable situation I have ever found myself in.

Then at the mid-morning break all the adult men went up to the courtroom and a lot of teenagers were sent out of the court room to make room for the adults. They came to the 16th overflow room and some were not well behaved, nor quiet. At several points it was impossible to hear some of the testimony because the boys were not being controlled by the female chaperons. A couple of the boys were kicked out when one security officer came in while they were being mildly disruptive.

Between the mid-morning break and lunch, an Arabic man came in made an announcement in Arabic (which excluded only me from the announcement) and nearly the whole room jumped up and ran for the exit. Obviously some seats had become available in the court room. Shortly afterward some of the teenagers came back who unable to get seats in the courtroom.

Although there are VERY few people coming into that courtroom who are not supporters of the defendants, I believe it sends a very intimidating message to the jurors who are not seeing very much security between themselves and the public. It would be nice if some rows in the courtroom were reserved for government supporters for the same reason.

The Dallas Morning News reporter Jason Trahan in his coverage of the Friday session wrote that Judge Solis had to issue a warning to the courtroom during the testimony of Imam Shorbagi because of the disruptive murmuring of spectators telling each other, “He’s lying.” Purported Holy Land insider testifies

Pray that in the days ahead some adjustments will be made to inhibit the intimidation factor and to level the playing field so people who are there in support of the government’s case are also granted in-court seating. I have always believed that the jury needed to see people sitting in the spectator seats who were not rooting for the defendants, but the public seems to have little interest in this case.

No one minding the store
The public probably has little interest because the media – outside of Jason Trahan’s reporting – has no interest and that is evident by the total lack of newspaper reports following the trial nationally. The local television news came out for the opening statements and likely will not return until the closing statements and verdict. The truth is the media nor the public will ever know how strong the government evidence has been because they just aren’t paying attention.

It is a tragic thing to have the future of our homeland security so on the line as it is in this trial and for so few to be paying attention to what is even happening.

“While men slept, the enemy came in and sowed tares.”
If we don’t care about this, who is it exactly that is going to hold back the tide?

More reports on the testimony of Week 4, Oct 14-17, 2008
Former Holy Land Representative says charity collected money for Hamas.
Jason Trahan, Dallas Morning News

Trahan’s HLF trial coverage in the DMN CRIMEblog

A Security-Conscious Charity
The Investigative Project on Terrorism

U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas Website
USA v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development Exhibit List

Eye Witness to the Holy Land Foundation Re-Trial, Week 3

HLF Trial
Update & Prayer Points

October 10, 2008
WEEK THREE:
Now On Emergency Footing

There is a critical ruling coming from Judge Solis next Tuesday (10/14/08) that we need to be in prayer about heavily over the next few days as attorneys file for the case against Ghassan Elashi to be dropped on double-jeopardy grounds, and/or for a mistrial to be declared for all five defendants and the other four defendants’ cases to be severed from Elashi.

Defendants’ attorneys took issue with the testimony late Wednesday evening of FBI Special Agent Robert Miranda that InfoCom, a company owned by Elashi with four of his brothers, did business with a U.S. government designated Hamas terrorist who figures prominently in this case as well. Defense attorneys argue that the testimony went too close to disclosing to the jury that Ghassan Elashi is currently serving prison time for a conviction on terrorism related charges.

Read more in Jason Trahan’s Dallas Morning News coverage here. Also Trahan’s back filings on this trial here.

Please pray for justice to prevail. The prosecutor and FBI agent are both professionals who understand what can cause cases to be thrown out completely – so it may be the defense attorneys are trying to make it seem they over-stepped even if they did not get into actual double jeopardy territory. This may be chest thumping and screaming by the defense in order to make the judge fear making the wrong ruling, a ruling which can be overturned in appeals.

Pray for the boldness of the prosecutors and prosecution witnesses to continue and for boldness in the Judge’s seat – that he would be granted uncanny wisdom in judging all matters of the case. Evidence has been very strong and is being presented in a way that an average citizen can follow and see the truth. This must be striking fear into the hearts of the defense. Pray for that to continue and for the truth to prevail and all the schemes of the enemy to be foiled.

Pray for the jury to not get caught up in anything but executing righteous judgment in the matter being presented to them. For the personal baggage that each brings into deliberations to be overwhelmed with a hunger for justice and truth to prevail – and for the safety issues of Americans to be upheld.

To this point I have asked you not to post this information on the web or in blogs but now I am going to reverse that and ask for you to spread these HLF Trial Prayer Reports as far and wide as you can. Before I was interested in not broadcasting our prayer strategies to those who are not praying with us. That has proven not to work, so with spiritual counsel, I am going in the other direction. Sometimes it is safer to go more public than less public.

I am encouraging you to not only forward these mailings but also to publish them on web sites and blogs. You may also publish the earlier couple of weeks of reports, too. If you have any questions on which ones, just drop me an email.

The trial gets underway again on Tuesday, Oct 14, which is the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles (which relates to the ingathering of the harvest).

These are tumultuous times in which we are living, and fear is all around but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. Pray for those who are involved in this trial as ministers of righteousness in the spirit of Romans 13:4-5, to be strong, courageous, bold, cunning and wise. Pray confusion and fear into the camp of the enemy, so that they may not stand as the justice of God is released through these proceedings.

Eye Witness to the Holy Land Foundation Re-Trial, Week 2

HLF Trial Update & Prayer Points

October 4, 2008
WEEK TWO

The "willing suspension of disbelief"
refers to the willingness of a person
to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction,
even if they are fantastic or impossible.
The person, or audience, tacitly agrees to provisionally
suspend their judgment in exchange for a satisfying personal payoff.

This is exactly what the defense attorneys in the Holy Land Foundation are asking the jury to do concerning all the evidence that has been presented over the past two weeks through Hamas and counter terrorism expert Dr. Matthew Levitt, Christian FBI Arabic translator Ataf Shafik, and FBI agent Lara Burns, a lead investigator in the decade long investigation of the Holy Land Foundation.

The payoff defense attorneys are appealing to on the jury panel judging this case is, of course, the public distrust that exists of governmental authorities. The Word of God however instructs us in Romans 13:3-4 differently about government authorities:

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

Pray for the fulfillment of this verse in this HLF terrorism financing case before the Federal Court in Dallas.

Defending Terrorism

For two weeks jurors have seen bank records, videos, wire tap audios, surveillance photos, in-house HLF documentation and declarations from the defendants themselves, yet the Defense proposes that nothing counts until 1995 when the U.S. government finally officially declared Hamas a terrorist organization. (See the evidence online at the US District Court website.)

The Defense is asking the jury to pretend like the consistent history of these 5 defendants has nothing to do with the charges against them of materially supporting a terrorist organization. The defense also asks the jury to forget about the multiple family connections of the defendants with the highest echelons of Hamas leaders including those family Hamas members funding the startup of HLF and presiding over disputes with other Islamist fundraisers.

The jury saw numerous videos that have been seized in FBI searches at various locations over the years that show, among other things, HLF fundraisers where skits are performed depicting murder of Jewish soldiers and Israeli citizens. Songs are also performed extolling suicide attackers killing Jews, glorifying “martyrdom” of jihadists and giving their blood to wipe the Jews out of Israel. Very often children from 4 or 5 years old to 12 participated in the performance singing the songs, marching in step and waving flags. It was troubling during these displays to realize that these are “home movies” for the families of the defendants.

I watched in horror as the children – some now grown - of several of the defendants were giggling between themselves recognizing themselves as little children performing in the fundraisers. Later as an audio tape was being played of a wire tap telephone call excitedly informing one of the defendants of 2 suicide bus bombings 30 minutes apart in Jerusalem in February 1996, one young teenager was giggling hearing the background noise of the call: a child playfully screaming in the defendant’s home. Like the “home movies” these phone calls are like “home audios” of their childhood. “Train up a child in the way he shall go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” How sad that these are normal activities and conversations in the life of the defendants’ children and families.

Yet the defendants are laughing up their sleeve because they know our system of law favors them being able to slither out of these charges because the jury has had their eyes taken off the ball by Defense attorneys focusing them on insignificant details to obscure the truth. We all can remember how that was accomplished in the O.J. Simpson trial, right? The jury must decide if these men are part of the Hamas terrorist organization in the U.S. Pray they will fulfill that charge in the interest of the American public safety.

As the defense stepped up to cross examine FBI agent Burns yesterday, we began to see the insignificant details ‘gotcha’ game come into play.

v Defense Attorney Linda Moreno (who represents Ghassan Elashi) majored on emphasizing that the dates of many of the damning videos and other government evidence introduced being dated or produced prior to the 1995 U.S. designation of Hamas. As if their life work up to 1995 did not count. She tried to introduce another “Ghassan” to make it seem the government had the wrong guy, and also tried to imply that the HLF acted exactly like the Red Cross.

Pray that jurors will not be willing to suspend disbelief that these men were aggressively committed to Hamas before the U.S. designation when they suddenly dropped all their prior life work of support and aid of Hamas because now Hamas was illegal by U.S. law. Pray for wisdom and clear thinking to prevail among the jury and to realize this is not just a sports event between lawyers, but whether terrorists are allowed free reign in our nation.

v Moreno is also sitting on top of all the defendants in how they are presenting themselves during the trial. I have seen her coaching them on what not to do – like instructing Elashi not to listen to testimony with ‘praying hands’ positioned to his face, or for Shukri Bakr not to sit with arms folded across his chest.

Pray for these efforts to present a false face to falter and for wise counsel in deception to fail. Continue to pray for the spirit of deceptive cover to be disintegrated by the Lord.

v Defense Attorney Nancy Hollander (who represents Shukri abu Bakr) majored on two themes so far. (1) emphasizing how long the FBI has been wiretapping the defendants and trying to bring the jury to relate to the privacy issues over the national security issues. This was the issue that effectively locked the jury last year from being able to concentrate on whether these men are Hamas and working against U.S. interests.

Pray that any who are given to distrust the government more than the Islamist terror organizations in our nation will see the light – that God will give the clarity of the issues and Divine wisdom to judge.

(2) Hollander is also trying to make truly insignificant details seem like a vast government conspiracy against the defendants. Judge Solis did not allow her to dispute these items before the jury and over the weekend she has to show exact examples for the judge to rule on before proceeding. She is also trying to bring the Christian Arab FBI translator into disrepute by saying his translations are not accurate. Pray that Ataf Shafik will not be slimed by false accusation – the differences in word translations Hollander is proposing is miniscule (like the meaning differences between “rebuilding” and “refurbishing”, for example).

After the lunch break on Friday as we waited for the resumption of Hollander’s cross examination of FBI agent Lara Burns, Shukri Bakr came over to talk to a boy sitting in the row in front of me with one of the defendant’s wives. I turned away from them but heard Shukri encouraging the boy about the trial “Next Year in Jerusalem” – they would all go to Jerusalem. In case you don’t know, this is a Jewish New Years’ saying that Jews have greeted each other with for centuries in their exile from Israel. I’m sure Shukri was just trying to provoke me to reaction. He didn’t. Pray that what these men have sown in their life association with Hamas, they will now reap during the processes of this trial.

v Defense Attorney Gregory Westfall (who represents Abdulrahman Odeh) is a Fort Worth attorney who does a down home Texas version of Peter Falk’s Columbo character when he is before the jury.

Pray the jury doesn’t buy into any of the false imagery they are being presented in this case – that God gives them supernatural discernment to judge between lies and truth.

Westfall is painting Odeh as a boy scout, humanitarian but anytime a business is used as a front to disguise the real criminal ‘business’ of the parties, they will carry out normal legal business as a cover for the criminal activity they are trying to hide.

Pray that jurors are not fooled by evidence of legitimate charity done by HLF while disguising terrorist support activities.

Westfall is also beating the drum on how long the government has been wiretapping the defendants, pointing out 9 years on defendant El Mezain and 5 years of Shukri. The implication is that in all those years the government has very little damning evidence captured on tape – however that overlooks that a criminal conspiracy protects itself by trying to never let down its guard. The moments it does are the moments law enforcement make their cases on. Pray that the jury will not be moved by false fronts and cover stories thrown up by the lawyers or the defendants.

On Tuesday last week, I made the mistake of being herded into an elevator full of the defense attorneys and Shukri Bakr. I stood in a back corner with attorney Greg Westfall to one side of me, atty Nancy Hollander in front of me and defendant Shukri Bakr on the other side of me. Westfall struck up a conversation with me – toying with me, of course – introducing himself and when I did not respond in kind, he asked me outright who I was. Still I hesitated from answering then Shukri Bakr said, “Donna. You are Donna?” I answered, Yes. Westfall then asked me if I found the trial interesting and I answered ‘Totally.’ As the elevator doors opened he replied that the fun just never quits coming. They actually believe there are taking the high ground in defending the indefensible: terrorism. It was an uncomfortable elevator ride and I will never make that mistake again.

These attorneys and defendants do not believe our God will answer our prayers about this trial. I have nothing to prove to them or to anyone else. But I am a citizen of the United States who cares greatly whether we are going to allow terrorists to raise funds in the U.S. so the terrorist group Hamas can continue to expand its influence and reign of terror.

Hamas, you have to understand, opposes all peace negotiations with Israel. Their outcome is that not “one hand’s span” of “Muslim” land remain “occupied” by Israel. The Islamist slogan is, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people,” meaning, first the Jews, then the Christians.

Please continue to pray for God’s justice to prevail in this case and for the protection of all involved in it. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent. If fear keeps Americans silent when cases like this are being conducted, then Islamists will overtake us. Lift up your voices to God for His justice to be executed on these men and upon those who are associated with them throughout this D/FW region and within the U.S. Is there not a cause?

Thanking you for your prayers over this trial,
Donna Diorio

On a related note: See the article by Messianic Jewish pastor, Ron Cantor, of King of Kings congregation in Jerusalem, “Sharia Don’t Like It”which discusses a bill that has been introduced by Republican Tom Tancredo, “The Jihad Prevention Act” which would banish Sharia law and its advocates from the United States. Cantor’s article is based on this article also found on his site:

Bill Would Ban Sharia Law and Advocates from U.S.
Monday September 22, 2008
By Robert Longley (about.com)

Sharia law, and its advocates, would be banished from the United States under "The Jihad Prevention Act" just introduced by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado, 6th).

Sharia law is a form of Islamic justice often criticized for its brutal physical punishments, including flogging and execution by stoning. Sharia punishment is often enforced against women found guilty of "Haram" offenses such as premarital sex and adultery.

Tancredo's bill would bar foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law from entering the United States and make advocacy of Sharia law a deportable offense.

"Any alien who fails to attest, in accordance with procedures specified by the Secretary of Homeland Security, that the alien will not advocate installing a Sharia law system in the United States is inadmissible."

"Advocating the installation of a Sharia law system in the United States shall constitute a ground for revocation of a person's naturalization under this subsection."

The United Kingdom recently declared the decisions of the five Sharia courts operating within the U.K. to be legally enforceable. "Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration," said Tancredo in a press release.

"When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty," declared Tancredo.

Vindicated! In HLF trial jurors were bullied

Vindication! I couldn’t help crying this morning as I followed my Google alert notice of news articles about the Holy Land Foundation trial to a breaking story on Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism, “HLF Jury Room Bullying.”

A few weeks ago, Michael Fechter with the Investigative Project emailed me with some questions about the jurors because of my follow up report on the trial and indications that there had been bullying by one of the jurors. He asked me not to say anything because they were doing an investigation into it.

His email came the same day as a new a piece written by Greg Krikorian in the LA Times (Weak case seen in failed trial of charity 11-4-07) which claimed to have spoken to three HLF jurors (only two named) who agreed the defendants were not guilty.

Since I was actually in the courtroom to see the jurors, I knew that the description in Krikorian’s piece about an older woman juror who agreed the defendants were guilty, was most definitely not the woman juror I described in my report—the one who took copious notes and was very unlikely to have believed the defendants were not guilty.

I am so thankful that Fechter and IPT pressed into this story and found jurors willing to talk about what went on behind those closed doors.

The IPT investigative article is total vindication of what I picked up on in the courtroom and in the post-trial interviews given by the bully juror. You can also see a video interview of juror Kristina Williams, who I noted had taken copious notes during the trial and who I felt had very likely been beaten down by Neal according to things he said in post trial interviews.

We can make a difference by getting involved.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Exclusive IPT Investigation Uncovers
HLF Jury Room Bullying
by Michael Fechter IPT News Service Dec 10, 2007
http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/569