[jriemer]

"The videotape behind the detention of an Annandale man was a vacation video showing the scenery from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and had nothing to do with terror surveillance, the man's daughter said yesterday.... (Dua'a) Elbarasse is being held on a material witness warrant in connection with a federal case in Chicago, where three men are charged with raising millions of dollars for Hamas. The U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist group and says the organization has carried out attacks in Israel."
Va. Family Defends Video of Bay Bridge - WaPo (8/26/2004)

Although the article doesn't spell it out, I would hazard a guess that Mr. Elbarasse is being held as part of the GRF cases being run out of Chicago.

[jriemer]

Oops, I forgot to add these bits of info about the Chicago investigation:
[snip] U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey released Elbarasse but wrote that he had worked "closely and directly" with Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, a former Falls Church resident who is deputy chief of Hamas's political wing. The judge said Elbarasse had "achieved a level of trust sufficient to permit him to hold a joint account with Abu Marzook that was used to transfer substantial funds . . . used for terrorist activity abroad."

It was Marzook's bank records that agents found in Saturday's search of Elbarasse's house. The federal indictment unsealed Friday in Chicago charges Marzook in an alleged racketeering conspiracy that authorities said raised millions of dollars for Hamas. Also charged were former Howard University professor Abelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, 46, of Fairfax County and Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah, 51, of suburban Chicago. Salah and Ashqar were arrested Thursday. Marzook, expelled from the United States in 1997, is believed to be living in Syria.[/snip]
Va. Family Defends Video of Bay Bridge - WaPo (8/25/2004)