Trial to look at exports
Five brothers had been accused of aiding terror, but focus has changed
02:09 AM CDT on Sunday, June 6, 2004
Eighteen months ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the indictments of five brothers and their Richardson computer services company as a milestone in the Bush administration's efforts to eliminate sources of terrorist financing.
"Terrorist money men should know this," Mr. Ashcroft said during a nationally televised news conference from Justice Department headquarters. "We are hunting down the murderers you support, and we will hunt you down."
But the case set to go to trial Monday in a Dallas federal court bears only a passing resemblance to the grandiose scheme outlined by Mr. Ashcroft. It is more about corrupt business practices than providing support for terrorism.
Ghassan Elashi and his brothers, Bayan, Basman, Hazim and Ihsan, are accused of making illegal shipments of computer goods from their company, InfoCom Corp., to Libya and Syria, two nations the U.S. government has deemed sponsors of terrorism.
The trial is likely to center on voluminous documentary evidence. Testimony could begin by Wednesday, and the trial is expected to last at least two weeks.
The Elashis are part of a large Palestinian family well-known for active involvement in the local Muslim community, including the now-closed Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Their attorneys, who are being paid through a legal defense fund established by fellow Muslims, contend the prosecution is unfair and tainted by political motivations.
"We're not Halliburton, so we're charged with crimes," said attorney Tim Evans, who helped assemble a team of other prominent defense attorneys because of what he perceived as a governmental assault on civil liberties.
Neither he nor the rest of the defense team would discuss strategy, but they did issue a joint statement:
"We are obviously living in a time when all of us are deeply concerned with our national security and personal safety," the statement said. "But at the same time, we should also be concerned when those among us are targeted by our government because of their ethnic background or religious beliefs."
The defense has signaled that it intends to put Mr. Ashcroft's conduct of the war on terrorism on trial as a tactic for arguing to jurors that the charges against the Elashi brothers and their company belong in civil, not criminal, court.
Prosecutors in the case, who include an attorney from the Justice Department in Washington, declined to comment. Kathy Colvin, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Jane Boyle, said Justice Department rules bar prosecutors from discussing the case.
"They can say whatever they want to say," Ms. Colvin said, referring to the defense attorneys. "We're just not going to make any comment."
The 25-count indictment against the Elashi brothers and their now-defunct technology business alleges that they conspired to violate U.S. export laws by making a series of shipments to Libya and Syria without the required government licenses.
The 11 shipments were made between March 1997 and July 2000 and involved about $63,000 worth of computers and computer parts, according to court records.
The government does not allege what the goods shipped by InfoCom may have been used for. But export regulations carrying criminal penalties normally are aimed at "dual use" commodities, which may be converted for military purposes.
Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for export enforcement with the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, said the InfoCom case was treated as a criminal matter because of the nature of the goods, the destinations and the Elashis' alleged ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group.
"These are individuals that not only Commerce but the FBI and many other agencies had been concerned with and had been concerned with for a long time," Ms. Myers said.
The government contends that the Elashis attempted to disguise the shipments to a computer company in Libya by routing the goods through Italy and the tiny Mediterranean nation of Malta, a well-known transshipment point.
The brothers also are accused of making false declarations about the Libya and Syria shipments and the actual values of goods transported by InfoCom to other locations in the Middle East on 18 occasions between 1995 and 1999.
If convicted on all counts, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of more than 100 years in prison. Three of the brothers also face deportation on immigration charges that they overstayed their visas.
The tactic of prosecuting export law violations as criminal offenses, rather than regulatory matters, has been on the upswing since the 9-11 attacks. It also offers prosecutors an advantage because cases can be proved through records.
"Export laws are great for a jury because they leave little room for debate," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "Either something received a permit or it did not."
Mr. Turley, whose areas of specialty include national security law, said the use of technical violations in terrorism cases is a trademark of Mr. Ashcroft's prosecutions.
"When it comes to organizations or companies accused of supporting terrorist organizations, the administration has shown an inclination to prosecute on every and any basis that they can find," Mr. Turley said.
The prosecution of the Elashi brothers and InfoCom has its roots in their relationship with Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy leader of the Hamas politburo. Mr. Marzook's wife, Nadia, is a second cousin of the Elashi brothers.
InfoCom first came to the federal government's attention in July 1995 when federal agents who had detained the Marzooks at Kennedy Airport in New York found documents on the couple regarding a $250,000 investment in InfoCom.
Mr. Ashcroft, at his news conference in December 2002, described the Marzook investment in InfoCom as "seed money" similar to money donated by Mr. Marzook to Holy Land Foundation at about the same time.
The Elashis and an attorney for Mr. Marzook have said the money came from Mrs. Marzook, not her husband. They contend the proceeds went to defer college expenses for one of the couple's children, not to terrorism.
InfoCom and Holy Land Foundation moved to Richardson from the Los Angeles area within a few months of each other in 1992. Their offices were across the street from each other, and they shared some employees and office space.
Ghassan Elashi, a vice president of InfoCom, was a co-founder of Holy Land Foundation and served as its board chairman until the Treasury Department closed it in December 2001 because of alleged financial ties to Hamas.
The closure of Holy Land Foundation came three months after a federal terrorism task force conducted a three-day search of InfoCom, froze some of its assets because of the Marzook investment and suspended the firm's export license.
Holy Land Foundation, which described itself as the largest American Muslim charity and denied any ties to Hamas, has never been charged with any crime.
Mr. Marzook and his wife were included in other indictments charging the Elashis with conspiracy to launder terrorist money through InfoCom. Mr. Marzook lives in Syria, and his wife is believed to live with him or in Jordan.
The Marzooks have been placed on an Interpol watch list, but the U.S. government has not attempted to extradite them.
Prosecutors agreed to sever the charges against the Elashis that also involved the Marzooks. A separate trial on those charges is expected to take place at a later date.
E-mail smcgonigle@dallasnews.com
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