Posted on 08/01/2002 12:00:36 PM PDT by honway
WHEN FBI COUNSEL COLLEEN ROWLEY DROPPED her bombshell, a now-famous letter to the director, detailing how bureau higher-ups thwarted attempts to investigate accused 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, before the September 11 attacks, she set off a firestorm. The scorching produced a mea culpa of sorts in June from FBI Director Robert Mueller and a promise of reform.
Now there's another whistle blower telling a similar pre-9/11 tale. And so far, the FBI has gone to great lengths to silence him.
The Weekly has learned that Chicago-based special agent Robert Wright has accused the agency of shutting down his 1998 criminal probe into alleged terrorist-training camps in Chicago and Kansas City. The apparent goal of the training camps, according to confidential documents obtained by the Weekly, was to recruit and train Palestinian-American youths, who would then slip into Israel. Recruits at these camps reportedly received weapons training and instruction in bomb-making techniques in the early 1990s. The bomb-making curriculum included the sort of explosives later used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And government documents state that two trainees came from the Oklahoma City area.
One alleged trainer at the terror camps is now fending off a government lawsuit to seize his bank accounts, car and property for alleged money laundering on behalf of the militant group Hamas. So far, no one has been prosecuted for these alleged terrorism-related activities.
The official government position is that Middle Eastern groups had no involvement in the 1995 bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh, and that conclusion may stand the test of time. The FBI, however, never fully investigated leads suggesting a different verdict, according to law-enforcement and government sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Congressional investigators are starting to re-examine the entire matter. There's also another troubling question: Why has the FBI dismissed or ignored evidence linking the Oklahoma City bombing to the Middle East? Is it because these leads are unlikely to pan out or because the agency still has something to hide regarding its own intelligence-gathering lapses?
ROBERT WRIGHT'S STORY IS DIFFICULT TO PIECE together because he is on government orders to remain silent. And by extension so are his attorneys when it comes to confidential information. Wright has written a book, but the agency won't let him publish it or even give it to anyone. All of this is in distinct contrast to the free speech and whistle-blower protections offered to Colleen Rowley, general counsel in the FBI Minneapolis office, who got her story out before the agency could silence her.
Wright, a 12-year bureau veteran, has followed proper channels, sending his book off for an internal review and asking for permission to respond to reporters' queries. Neither of those efforts panned out, and he has since sued the agency over this publication ban. The best he could do was a May 30 press conference in Washington, D.C., where he told curious reporters that he had a whopper of a tale to tell, if only he could.
Wright did say that FBI bureaucrats "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted his attempts to launch a more comprehensive investigation to identify and neutralize terrorists." And that "FBI management failed to take seriously the threat of terrorism in the U.S." Wright was careful not to i llegally disclose any confidential details about what he knew, but tears filled his eyes as he apologized to the families of September 11 victims for the Bureau's mistakes leading up to 9/11. He also made a tantalizing reference to his removal from a money-laundering case that, he implied, had a direct connection to investigations into terrorism.
This still-active case centers on Mohammed Abdul Hamid Khalil Salah, 49, a naturalized American citizen who was born in Jerusalem. Salah has described himself as a humanitarian who distributed money collected in the U.S. to needy West Bank Palestinian families. He's also reportedly worked in Arab-owned grocery stores, as a used car salesman and as a computer analyst for a Chicago-based Islamic charitable group, the Quranic Literacy Institute, which the FBI alleges was involved in money laundering. Institute and Muslim leaders have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Both the American and Israeli governments contend that Salah served as a money courier for the terrorist group Hamas. Salah's attorney in the civil action, Mathew Piers, did not return phone calls from the Weekly. But in published accounts, Piers adamantly denied that his client was a bagman for Hamas. Salah and his wife are still living
in Chicago in a house the government is trying to seize.
In June 1998, the feds filed a civil assets-forfeiture suit against Salah. Such actions are frequently used to seize the money and property of drug dealers. In the Salah case, the U.S. Attorney's Office went after personal property and accounts in seven banks, with a total estimated value of $1.5 million. In the civil complaint, the government alleged that Salah intended the funds would "support a conspiracy involving international terrorist activities, [and] the domestic recruitment and training in support of such activities, including extortion, kidnapping and murder of citizens of Israel."
Attached to the complaint is a 40-page sworn affidavit from agent Wright. In it, Wright details bank accounts, property deals and money transfers designed to support Hamas. But among the most intriguing elements is a reference to Salah's earlier trial in Israel, which received substantial press coverage in Israel at the time.
In 1993, Israeli intelligence arrested Salah and another naturalized American, Mohammed Jarad, on suspicion of transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas for guns and ammunition.
Salah was interrogated by Israeli military intelligence -- he says he was tortured, a claim the Israelis deny. Under interrogation, Salah reportedly confessed to recruiting Islamic militants and then helping to instruct them in the use of poisons, chemical weapons and explosives. The training supposedly occurred in the late 1980s. Later, in 1991, Salah allegedly served as a financial agent for Hamas, opening accounts at a number of Chicago-area banks. Wright's affidavit states that between June 1991 and December 1992, Salah spent more than $100,000 in direct support of Hamas military activities. Wright added that the weapons purchased were used in Hamas assaults and suicide attacks on Israeli citizens.
In 1994, at Salah's secret military trial, Israeli prosecutors introduced a statement signed by another Palestinian detainee, Naser Hidmi, formerly a student at Kansas State University. Hidmi stated in an affidavit that he accepted Salah's invitation to a four-day "retreat" at a camp in the Chicago area in June 1990. At the camp, he reportedly studied Hamas philosophy and received explosives training. Hidmi also asserted in his statement that he met Salah again at a conference of Muslim youth held in Kansas City in December of the same year. On that occasion, Hidmi claimed he got more Hamas training and Salah participated in the instruction.
In 1995, Salah pleaded guilty to funneling funds to Hamas and he served about five years in prison before being released and deported to the U.S. Mohammed Jarah served six months in jail following a plea bargain to a lesser charge.
While Salah sat in an Israeli prison, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control added his name to the list of "Specially Designated Terrorists," because of his alleged Hamas connections. After he returned to Chicago, Salah found himself squarely in the FBI's crosshairs. In 1995, Wright began investigating money laundering on behalf of international terrorist organizations. This investigation led him to Salah.
Wright's affidavit alleges that Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader, directed Salah's activites, at one point authorizing him to give $790,000 to Hamas military units. The Israeli government indicted Marzook, while he was living in the U.S., for abetting terror attacks in Israel. American authorities arrested Marzook and held him for two years before deporting him to Jordan.
Wright also alleged that Salah funneled money through Switzerland via Saudi businessman Yassin Kadi. The U.S. government has since designated Kadi as a financial supporter of Osama bin Laden and frozen his American assets. Kadi too has denied any wrongdoing.
The assets-forfeiture case against Salah, which was filed in an Illinois federal court, remains active. Wright was removed from the case shortly after it was filed. And he would apparently contend, if allowed to talk, that his FBI superiors ordered him to drop any criminal investigation into Salah and the terrorist camps allegedly run by Hamas.
WRIGHT'S WAS NOT THE ONLY PROBE of Middle Eastern links to terrorists and acts of terror in the U.S. Unbeknownst to Wright, an investigation of Salah and his alleged involvement in training camps was undertaken by the House of Representatives Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. This task force, as previously reported in the Weekly, had issued alerts to law enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies in the months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. It had warned of an impending Islamist terror campaign, allegedly run by Hamas and directed by Iran.
After the 1995 blast, Oklahoma Citybased television reporter Jayna Davis spoke numerous times with task-force executive director Yossef Bodansky. He eventually gave her a memo in which he'd summarized intelligence reports detailing the operations of the terror camps. In the memo, constructed from his intelligence reports, Bodansky wrote that Iranian intelligence had ordered Hamas to develop cadres from among Palestinian youth living in the U.S.
"The idea," Bodansky wrote, "was to build a group of highly trained Arabs with U.S. passports who can be inserted into Israel to replace local cadres killed or arrested by Israeli Forces." The Iranians, Bodansky contended, argued that Israel would treat the Americans with "kid gloves." He also stated it would be easier for these recruits to infiltrate Israel with U.S. documents.
Bodansky declined to be interviewed by the Weekly, but in the memo, Bodansky also alleged that the first round of training took place in Chicago, "organized by Muhammad Salah" in 1990. Bodansky stated that "25 trainees" took part and all were given code names.
"Salah and five other instructors, including a Libyan-American, who was a former Marine," he wrote, conducted training. The instruction included military topics, sabotage, and one group received "detailed instructions on building car bombs from readily available, off the shelf materials."
Bodansky also wrote that a second round of training occurred at a December 1990 Hamas youth conference in Kansas City. "Secret sessions," he added, "were devoted to leadership and command training." Another round of training also occurred in Kansas City in 1991. During this meeting, he said, some people were given "highly detailed and practical instructions in supervising the construction of explosives, including car bombs like the one used in Oklahoma City."
The operatives, Bodansky stated, were then assigned to locations throughout the U.S. He also alleged that so-called "Lilly whites" were subsequently trained at the same Chicago camps in 1993. These were people, whose backgrounds he stated, would not make them suspect. These individuals were given weapons training as well as the latest instruction in bomb-making techniques. Two individuals from Oklahoma City, he added, attended this camp. Bodansky did not name these men.
The information supplied to reporter Davis mirrors the information about Salah and the terror training camps that emerged from Israel and through Wright's affidavit. Wright's attorney told the Weekly that Wright knew nothing of Bodansky's parallel investigation.
TO DATE, THE FBI AND DEPARTMENT OF Justice have seemingly exerted more effort in shutting down these leads than pursuing them. Last October, the Justice Department blocked the court appearance of retired Oklahoma City FBI agent Dan Vogel at a hearing in the state murder case against convicted Oklahoma Cityaccomplice Terry Nichols. In an interview with the Weekly, Vogel said he intended to tell the court the truth -- that he had accepted evidence from former TV reporter Jayna Davis that tied Timothy McVeigh, Nichols and a group of Iraqis working in Oklahoma City to a larger bombing conspiracy.
Vogel said he passed the materials to the Bureau but was later told the documents were returned because of questions regarding who owned the documents. Davis and her attorneys contend that the documents were never returned. Whatever the case, the Bureau's reputed rationale for spurning potential evidence is slim indeed.
Wright got no explanation at all when he was ordered to cease his own probe, said Chicago-based attorney David Schippers, who is representing Wright along with Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.based legal foundation. (Schippers is most famous for his role as lead counsel spearheading the House impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.) "Bob was simply pulled off these investigations," said Schippers. The FBI "just shut down the operations and never told him why."
The FBI and the Department of Justice declined comment for this story.
Wright chronicled his allegations against the Bureau in a complaint filed with the Inspector General's Office of the Department of Justice. The FBI, in turn, has threatened to discipline or fire Wright if he publicizes the details of the complaint. The Inspector General's Office has failed to act, referring the matter to Congress instead. And there, finally, investigators got interested, and called Wright in for an interview, said sources close to the investigation. It remains to be seen how far and how vigorously these leads will be pursued.
It's more likely they're spending every spare minute of their lives just trying to get the lamestream media to cover it at all. Patterson and Crogan are obviously not lame and deserve some special pats on the back, don't you think?
james.patterson@indystar.com
I can't find Jim Crogan's email, but I found this:
"Send letters to the editor to: L.A. Weekly, P.O. Box 4315, L.A., CA 90078. Or fax us at (323) 465-3220. Or e-mail us at letters@laweekly.com. Letters, which must be typewritten and include a daytime telephone number for verification, may be edited for purposes of space or clarity."
The next time the Texas Lotto gets way up there, maybe I'll send them both an envelope full of tickets. :-)
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
April 8, 1996, Monday, HOME FINAL EDITION
Correction Appended
NEWS; Pg. 1APaper trail leads to Hamas; 2 organizations based in Richardson deny they promote agenda of anti-Israeli terrorists
Gayle Reaves, Steve McGonigle
Inside a Kansas City auditorium in 1989, a masked man stepped to a lectern and described in Arabic the "oceans of blood" spilled in Hamas' armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.
He thanked two nonprofit organizations for being early allies:
the Islamic Association for Palestine, sponsor of the conference, and the Occupied Land Fund.
Seven years later, Hamas is again threatening Middle East peace with a series of suicide bombings. The Occupied Land Fund has become the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That group and the IAP, both now based in Richardson, are under attack for allegedly aiding Hamas. Leaders of the local groups denied affiliation with Hamas.
Sharing a stage with Hamas speakers doesn't mean they approve of Hamas terrorism or provide support for it, they say.
"We have never raised money for Hamas or tried to recruit members for Hamas," said Shukri Abu Baker, executive director of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
Public records, materials from the two groups and interviews over seven months show a pattern of personal, financial and philosophical ties between Hamas and the two nonprofit groups. For example:
* The Islamic Association for Palestine reprinted the Hamas charter, which calls for killing Jews in jihad, or holy war. The association's Arabic-language publications in the early 1990s routinely praised Hamas and its violent opposition to the peace process. The association also published and distributed Hamas communiques on U.S. college campuses.
* Videotapes displaying the logo and phone number of an Islamic Association for Palestine subdivision glorify Hamas attacks on Jewish soldiers and civilians.
* Last month, the Israeli government closed the Jerusalem office of the Holy Land Foundation because of alleged ties to Hamas. Officials also closed the headquarters of an Islamic school partly funded by the Holy Land Foundation and arrested its director for allegedly being a Hamas activist.
* Mousa Abu Marzook, the political leader of Hamas, provided more than 10 percent of all donations to the Holy Land Foundation in 1992, according to Internal Revenue Service records. Mr. Marzook's wife is a cousin of Ghassan El-Ashi, a Holy Land Foundation board member, and Basman El-Ashi, a former president of the Islamic Association for Palestine.
The Israeli government alleges that Mr. Marzook is actually the military leader of Hamas and thus is involved in planning and financing the group's terrorist operations. It has filed bank records and confessions from alleged Hamas activists to support the claim.
* Israeli officials allege that Mr. Marzook and Ismail Elbarasse, a former board member of the Islamic Association for Palestine's parent organization, funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars from U.S. banks to fund Hamas terrorism. Mr. Elbarasse and Mr. Marzook are friends and formerly were business partners.
Hamas - an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement - was founded near the start of the intifada , a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas' goal is the destruction of Israel and establishment of an Islamic state.
The government of Israel and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith have alleged that the two Richardson-based groups are part of the "command and control structure" of Hamas in the United States.
Charges echoed
Those charges have been echoed by two pro-Israel members of Congress, former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver "Buck" Revell and in an award-winning and controversial documentary, Jihad in America, produced by journalist Steven Emerson.
U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., asked the IRS last month to revoke the Holy Land Foundation's tax-exempt status because of what she termed its support for Hamas terrorism.
Officials of the Islamic Association for Palestine and Holy Land Foundation say they want peace between Israel and the Palestinian people and that they deplore the killing of innocent people.
They admit sympathy with the Hamas cause of establishing a Palestinian state and share its opposition to the Israeli-PLO peace accord. But they argue that they are being demonized by Zionists to halt aid to and information about Palestinian Muslims.
"We've been targeted because we are very visible," said Mr. Baker, a co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation. "We are the only one focused on the needs of the Palestinian people."
Ghassan El-Ashi, another Holy Land Foundation co-founder and an incorporator of the Islamic Association for Palestine, branded the accusations "guilt by association." He called materials purporting to show links between the two nonprofit groups and Hamas "very old and shoddy."
Mr. El-Ashi said family ties to Mr. Marzook do not mean they share the same politics. Among Palestinians, he said, members of the same family are often split among political factions.
Records, interviews
The Dallas Morning News examined court filings, business records and materials produced by the Islamic Association for Palestine and Holy Land Foundation since 1987, when Hamas was formed.
The newspaper also interviewed law enforcement officers, Middle Eastern scholars and high-ranking officials of the two nonprofit organizations.
The examination revealed two close-knit groups that often work together. The Islamic Association for Palestine, which describes itself as an information center, and the Holy Land Foundation, which raises money for Islamic charitable causes, have become prominent in the American Muslim community.
Islamic Association for Palestine publications state that the group was formed in 1981, six years before Hamas began in Gaza.
Osama Abdul, vice chairman of the association, said the group was started by students at universities around the United States.
The organization also says that it supplies information about the Palestinian cause by publishing newspapers and sponsoring conferences. The group has a home page on the Internet.
Al-Zaitonah ( The Olive ), an Arabic newspaper published by the Islamic Association for Palestine, is considered in Israel to be "the Hamas paper," said Israeli journalist Roni Shaked, author of a 1993 book on Hamas.
An issue dated March 16, 1995, carried an ad for a book entitled Jews Behind Every Crime and repeated a rhyme about carrying the Palestinian fight from the hotels - that is, diplomatic talks - to the trenches. A 1990 issue of another association publication printed song lyrics praising Hamas as "the conscience of the country" and "iron in the face of the Jews." The Islamic Association for Palestine has since ceased to publish the quarterly called Ila Falastin , Arabic for Toward Palestine.
Cartoons depicted a mosque with its minaret replaced by a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a map of the United States drawn as a target pierced with arrows.
A Palestinian-American convicted in Israel of aiding Hamas terrorism told police that both Islamic Association for Palestine papers were "published by Hamas activists." Hamas pamphlets are distributed in the occupied territories by enclosing them with Al-Zaitonah, he said.
Hamas' motto
The charter of Hamas was printed by the Islamic Association for Palestine, complete with the organization's name and local post office box address. The charter includes Hamas' motto, which lists "jihad as its methodology and death for the sake of Allah is its most coveted desire."
"There is no solution to the Palestinian Problem except by Jihad," the charter says. It refers to jihad as carrying weapons and confronting the enemy, providing equipment to the fighter and looking after his family.
Mr. Abdul said he did not know that the association had published the Hamas charter. But any Hamas statements published by the association "were published for information purposes only" because "everybody was asking about this organization," he said.
The Islamic Association for Palestine, he said, does not endorse the killing of innocent civilians.
"We as IAP, we don't feel happy when someone is killed," he said. News of the four suicide bombings that were carried out in Israel between Feb. 25 and March 4, claiming 58 lives, "worried us because we knew 2 million Palestinians will be punished" for them.
But audience members at the December 1989 conference of the Islamic Association for Palestine shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") when the masked Hamas spokesman talked about an ocean of blood.
In a videotape of the conference, Yaser Bushnaq, a Dallas resident who was then president of the Islamic Association for Palestine, welcomed participants. A Hamas banner draped a table, from which one speaker after another praised Hamas. The conference was named after Abdullah Azzam, considered a Hamas martyr.
Ahmed Al Qattan, a militant cleric from Kuwait, said Hamas "made the Jews shiver in fear." He led a chant that said, in part, "Long live Hamas. . . . Now the stone will be replaced by the Kalashnikov."
Mr. Abdul insists that the association was not endorsing Hamas terrorism by organizing the 1989 conference. At that time, "every Palestinian was emotionally involved with the intifada . . . . If you talked to people about anything else, they would just leave you," he said.
Attack re-enacted
Mr. Emerson, the documentary producer, supplied another videotape that he described as a Hamas training video. It depicts men with assault rifles re-enacting an attack on a Jewish factory.
In another scene, rifle bullets spell out "Hamas" in Arabic characters. The opening frames carry the logo of Aqsa Vision Audio Visual Production. The association's Richardson telephone number is provided at the end for ordering copies.
Mr. Abdul called Aqsa Vision "the sales department of IAP," selling items with the association's logo or slogans. He said Aqsa Vision "does not produce any tapes."
He called the alleged training video "a professional cut-and-paste job" by Mr. Emerson, whom he and Muslim leaders around the country have denounced as pro-Zionist.
Mr. Emerson's 1994 documentary drew national attention to the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation. He alleged that the two organizations were part of a radical Islamic network operating within the United States.
The recent bombings by Hamas in Israel have renewed that attention, as has Israel's effort to extradite Mr. Marzook from the United States to put him on trial for terrorism. He remains in jail in New York while the extradition case is being decided.
Israel says that Mr. Marzook, a former resident of Ruston, La., is actually Hamas' military leader. He has said that he knew nothing of Hamas' military actions and is fighting extradition.
Thick volumes of records filed by Israel in the case contain extensive statements by Muhammad Salah, a Chicago-area used-car dealer who confessed to being a Hamas agent. His statements, made in early 1993, fueled Israeli charges of Hamas activism in the United States.
Mr. Salah told Israeli investigators that Mr. Marzook sent him and another Hamas leader in London to reorganize Hamas operations and distribute funds to Hamas activists in the Occupied Territories.
Confession recanted
Last year, Mr. Salah was convicted of aiding Hamas terrorism and sentenced to five years in prison. He later recanted his confession, insisting the statements were coerced through abuse and torture.
Statements by Mr. Salah and other alleged Hamas activists describe attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. They also trace more than $ 200,000 provided for guns and terrorist action to a U.S. bank account.
The account, at a bank in McLean, Va., was held jointly by Mr. Marzook and Mr. Elbarasse, a former board member of the American Middle Eastern League for Palestine, an Islamic Association for Palestine parent organization.
Stanley Cohen, a New York attorney for Mr. Marzook, said it was Mr. Elbarasse who transferred $ 735,000 to Mr. Salah's Chicago bank account.
Mr. Salah then had $ 200,000 transferred to him in Israel, bank records show. When Mr. Salah was arrested, $ 97,000 in cash was also confiscated.
Mr. Cohen said the money did not belong to his client. Mr. Marzook did not know it had been sent to Mr. Salah, the attorney said, nor did Mr. Marzook direct how Mr. Salah should spend the funds.
A man at Mr. Elbarasse's home in Falls Church, Va., hung up the phone when a reporter asked to speak to Mr. Elbarasse.
Several current and former association officials are helping Mr. Marzook with his legal troubles. Mr. Bushnaq, the former association president, is one of two signatories on the Marzook legal defense fund, Mr. Cohen said.
Rafiq Jaber and Sabri Ibrahim, current president and vice president, respectively, of the Islamic Association for Palestine, say they also are assisting with Mr. Marzook's defense by circulating petitions and encouraging contributions. Both live in the Chicago area, where the association is planning to move its headquarters.
Mr. Marzook is also a key link between Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation, one of the largest U.S. fund-raisers for Islamic charitable causes.
Founded as the Occupied Land Fund in California in 1987, the organization renamed itself and moved to Richardson in 1992. Last year the group raised $ 2.25 million in donations and another $ 1 million in in-kind contributions, officials said.
Tax returns
According to Holy Land Foundation tax returns, Mr. Marzook contributed $ 210,000 in 1992. His personal secretary, Nasser Alkhatib, contributed another $ 22,450. Total contributions for the year were $ 2 million.
Mr. Baker, the foundation's executive director, remembered Mr. Marzook making the contribution after an Islamic conference in Kansas City.
He cited the donation as proof that there is no secret relationship between Mr. Marzook and the foundation. Mr. Marzook knew his contribution would be reported, Mr. Baker said.
At the time, Mr. Baker said, Mr. Marzook had not stated publicly that he was a leader of Hamas.
"We'll take any money if it's legal," the Holy Land Foundation director said.
Mr. Marzook, through his attorney, denied making the contribution. Mr. Cohen said the donation came from Mr. Elbarasse.
"I'm saying that transaction was from the joint account and had nothing to do with Mr. Marzook," he said. "I'm sorry. Mousa Marzook did not donate $ 210,000 to them."
Mr. Cohen acknowledged that Mr. Marzook's wife, Nadia, invested $ 250,000 in 1993 in InfoCom Corp., a Richardson computer company run by her cousin, Bayan El-Ashi. Mr. El-Ashi is the brother of Ghassan El-Ashi, the foundation's treasurer and InfoCom's international marketing director.
Ghassan El-Ashi declined to discuss whether Mrs. Marzook was an investor in InfoCom, and he referred questions to Mr. Cohen.
There is an even stronger link between Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation than Mr. Marzook - one which Mr. Baker and Ghassan El-Ashi readily admit and defend.
The Holy Land Foundation provides grants to schools, clinics, mosques and other social service organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere to meet Muslim humanitarian needs.
Publications say the Holy Land Foundation raises money for widows, orphans, the homeless and "families of martyrs." The group boasts it was the first to aid 413 suspected Hamas activists whom Israel deported to Lebanon in 1992.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Middle East experts say, Hamas is widely regarded as one of the largest and most efficient providers of social services. The Holy Land Foundation helps support some of those Hamas institutions.
Hamas bastion
The Islamic University of Gaza is listed by the foundation as one recipient. It is known as a Hamas bastion; Mr. Marzook was one of its founders.
Mr. Baker said the Holy Land Foundation does not care about the political leanings of the people whose programs it funds. "Our humanitarian work is not colored by political reality in that area," he said.
Mr. Abdul of the Islamic Association for Palestine denied that Hamas operates social service agencies - that is a Zionist mischaracterization, he said.
Dr. Philip Mattar, executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington, said Hamas' social service system is undeniable.
"Hamas does run social and health services in the West Bank.
There's no doubt about it," he said. "Most of their money goes to running those services. But they benefit enormously in that it generates an enormous amount of good will, especially in underdeveloped areas."
In many such organizations in the Middle East, accusations of corruption are common. "You won't find too much corruption among Hamas organizations," Dr. Mattar said. "They are quite puritanical."
Another recipient of Holy Land Foundation funds was an Islamic school operated by Jamil Hamami. Mr. Hamami, who has been called a Hamas leader by Israel, has been detained several times. His Faith School is one of the most respected in the West Bank, Mr. Baker said.
Since the bombings began in March, Israeli authorities have shut down many Muslim charities because of suspected Hamas ties. Among those closed was the Holy Land Foundation's Jerusalem office.
"Yes, that was because they are claiming we have Hamas ties," Mr. Baker said. He called Israel's action "a political move" that the foundation is challenging in Israeli court.
Ms. Lowey, the congresswoman who is seeking to revoke the foundation's tax-exempt status, contended that the Holy Land Foundation's aid to Hamas-run charities and deportees is proof of the foundation's support for terrorism.
"If you're raising money for Hamas activists, you're raising money for Hamas," she said in a statement.
Money not traced
Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said U.S. officials have not been able to trace money raised by Muslim charities in the United States to Middle East terrorism. But he said contributions to the Hamas social service network can benefit its military operations.
"You can give money to a specific hospital in Gaza, for example, and that money will go there," he said. "And if that money is controlled by Hamas, that frees up money that can go for bad things."
Mr. Baker said the Holy Land Foundation is considering a fund-raising campaign to rebuild houses for families of suicide bombers. The Israeli government has demolished more than 100 such homes, he said.
The demolitions are against international law because they are "collective punishment" aimed at a large group of people rather than at specific individuals convicted of crimes, he said.
"My obligation as a humanitarian is to go there and rebuild those houses," he said. "I don't want the rest of the children to go and blow themselves up because they see the world is full of injustice."
Mr. Baker, who has spent half his life in the West and whose mother is Christian, said he believes Israel has a right to exist.
He said Israel's Zionist government should put aside its bigotry and permit Palestinians to have a country, too.
"A lot of good Jews are doing wonderful things in this country and everywhere. They do not deserve my anger or hate," he said. "A lot of bad Muslims are doing bad things. They deserve my frustration.
"But if you want to . . . base all your positions and attitudes in this life on religion or ethnicity or political backgrounds, you're doomed to be a failure."
CORRECTION: April 17, 1996, Wednesday, HOME FINAL EDITION
In a story that begain on Page 1A on April 8, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was incorrectly referred to as one of the organizations discussed in the Jihad in America documentary. The Richardson-based charitable group was not mentioned in that documentary. The same article misstated the religion of HLF Executive Director Shukri Abu Baker's mother. She is Muslim. The story identified Osama Abdul as vice chairman of the Islamic Association ofr Palestine. Mr. Abdul said he is a Dallas representative but not an officer of the group.
55 posted on 9/10/01 8:30 AM Central by Nita Nupress
Maybe I should clarify that and not assume people already know... The MMPI is given in many different job occupations as part of the application process. :-)
Could it be because that would expose Wobbly to charges of treason? Why did Wobbly import Republican Guard members to OKC?
(Tinhat on...) Seriously, how refreshing this one revelation would be for the entire landscape of people-v-government relations. That the entire country would at once become wary of the government's stories about surveillance, the economy, taxes, etc.
"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust." - Demosthenes (c. 384–322 B.C.)
(Tinhat off...not really....I luv that quote)
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