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Two founder members of what was once the biggest Muslim charity in the US have each been jailed for 65 years. Shukri Abu Baker, 50, and Ghassan Elashi, 55, were convicted of channelling funds to the Palestinian militant group, Hamas. Three other members of the Holy Land Foundation were jailed for between 15 and 20 years by a Dallas court. The charity was found guilty last year of sending $12m (£7.4m) to fund social programmes controlled by Hamas. The five men were convicted in November on charges ranging from money laundering to supporting terrorism.

Note: The following text is a quote: Federal Judge Hands Downs Sentences in Holy Land Foundation Case Holy Land Foundation and Leaders Convicted on Providing Material Support to Hamas Terrorist Organization Today, in federal court in Dallas, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis sentenced the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and five of its leaders following their convictions by a federal jury in November 2008 on charges of providing material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization. "Today's sentences mark the culmination of many years of painstaking investigative and prosecutorial work at the federal, state and...

Prosecutors have secured their seventh conviction in the Hamas-financing case against the defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). On Wednesday, 54-year-old Akram Abdallah pled guilty to lying to federal agents about his HLF involvement during interviews in 2007. According to his indictment, Abdallah told FBI agents he had nothing to do with HLF, when, in fact, "between approximately 1994 and 1997, defendant was involved in fund raising activities" in the Phoenix area. Abdallah faces up to eight years in prison when he is sentenced in August. In November, five former HLF officials were convicted on 108 counts...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=308555 Home > Media Resources SCHUMER, KYL INQUIRE ABOUT RECENT FBI DECISION TO SEVER TIES WITH ISLAMIC GROUP Recent Trial and Conviction of Fundraisers for the Holy Land Foundation Revealed Possible Ties Between CAIR and Hamas FBI and CAIR Previously Collaborated on Outreach to American-Muslim Community and Agent Training WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) announced Tuesday that they have requested more information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding its decision to sever its ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Officials at...

This is great news, but I still wonder what took the FBI so long. "FBI Cuts Off CAIR Over Hamas Questions," by Mary Jacoby for IPT News, January 29 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF),...

There's a new front in the conflict between Jew and Muslim: Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports buses. Fifty of the county's 290-bus fleet have been chugging around area streets for the past several weeks with a message that might seem more oblique than inflammatory. Black letters on a white backdrop proclaim, "ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad." The $60,000 ad was paid for by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We owe it to our fellow Americans to let them know that Islam stands for peace," said Altaf Ali, director of CAIR's South...

Federal prosecutors last summer rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case. ISNA has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” And the head of ISNA is going to offer a

At past inaugurations, ceremonial prayers uttered on behalf of the incoming president drew about as much attention as the flags on the podium. Not this year. Barack Obama's choice of clergy is under scrutiny like no other president-elect before him, alternately outraging Americans on the left and the right as he navigates the minefield of U.S. religion. "I can't recall any prayers drawing so much attention," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center who specializes in religion in public life. Gay advocates assailed Obama, while many conservative Christians were heartened, when he invited the Rev. Rick Warren,...

Jeffrey Imm writes in with an AP report about the January 21 Inaugural prayer service to take place at the National Cathedral in Washington. Among those officiating will be Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). This is an outrage and should be stopped. What's ISNA? As I have written (here, for instance), the US government has identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. Actually, the Muslim Brotherhood itself has identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. And the Muslim Brotherhood is all about extending Islamic law globally--even in America. According to its 1991...

"grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" Islamic Society of Boston Mosque Madness Update. "Texas Terrorism Trial Ties Boston mosque leaders to Extremist Network," from Citizens for Peace and Tolerance (thanks to Jerry): Dennis Hale, President of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, called today for a public investigation of the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s sale of land to the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) for the construction of New England ’s largest mosque. Hale noted that officers of the largest Muslim charity in America , The Holy Land Foundation (HLF), convicted in Texas last week of funding Middle...

An appellate court has upheld a $156 million judgment against two organizations found to have provided financial support to Hamas and sent the claim against a third back to district court for a new trial. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday that eliminated the distinction between supporting the violent and social wings of a terrorist group. "If you give money to an organization that you know to be engaged in terrorism, the fact that you earmark it for the organization's nonterrorist activities does not get you off the liability hook," Judge Richard Posner wrote for the...

A federal jury in Dallas on Monday dealt the Stealth Jihad initiative in the United States a crushing defeat: it found five former officials of an Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), guilty of funneling at least $12 million of the charity’s funds to the jihad terror group Hamas. The notorious “Muslim civil rights” group, the Council on American Islamic Relations, is involved as well, since Ghassan Elashi, a founding director of CAIR as well as founder of the group’s Texas chapter, was among those found guilty; Elashi and his co-defendants face prison sentences of up to twenty years...

Homeland Security: U.S. citizens have spoken with a resounding verdict of GUILTY and said they're not going to tolerate those who fund terror in this country under the cover of Muslim charity.In one of the biggest wins yet in the battle against terror-financing, federal prosecutors convinced a Texas jury to convict the nation's largest Muslim charity and five of its former organizers of illegally funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Jurors read guilty verdicts on all 108 felony charges in the conspiracy — a clean sweep for the Justice Department, which streamlined its case against...

DALLAS – A jury convicted five former officials at the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) on all counts in the Hamas-support case after 8 days of deliberations. The men, Shukri Abu-Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohamed El-Mezain, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, could face up to 20 years in prison for their convictions on conspiracy counts, including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The verdicts, read Monday afternoon, ended a two-year saga in what is considered the largest terror financing case since the 9/11 attacks. In the original trial last year, jurors acquitted El-Mezain on 31 of the...

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Jurors have reached a verdict in the second trial of a Muslim charity accused of helping to finance terrorism in the nation's largest such case since the Sept. 11 attacks.The verdict was to be announced Monday afternoon, on the eighth day of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. It was once the nation's largest Muslim charity.Holy Land is accused of giving more than $12 million to support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 1995.Jurors were to read a long list of verdicts on more than...

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges. The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting...

CAIR Exposed: Part 1 As IAP Offshoot, CAIR Followed Pro-Hamas Agenda From the Start by Steven Emerson IPT News March 24, 2008FEATURE STORY   From the Hamas ties of its founders in 1994 to its solicitous stance toward accused terrorists today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demonstrated that its actual mission is far removed from the civil rights advocacy it claims to pursue. Still standing as perhaps the clearest evidence of CAIR's insidious role, two key leaders of the group attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia called by Hamas members and supporters to devise a strategy for torpedoing...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) should cut off outreach efforts with organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist extremist groups, a report from a ranking Senate subcommittee member recommends. "Justice Denied: Waste & Mismanagement at the Department of Justice," is an 86-page report issued in October by the office of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and

PHOENIX, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Muslim leaders in Arizona have drawn increased scrutiny from federal officials in the past year because of a string of suspicious incidents, officials say. Although no one in the state has been accused of supporting terrorists, one Mesa, Ariz., man was charged with lying to the FBI during the terror financing investigation into a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to the Palestinian group Hamas, The Arizona Republic reported Sunday. Also drawing attention to Arizona Muslims was a target-shooting episode in Phoenix that involved a large group of Muslim men and boys firing hundreds of...