Islamic coalition says bias prompted arrests
Posted on 12/20/2002 1:31:42 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Islamic coalition says bias prompted arrests
Tearful relatives join in criticizing charges against 4 brothers
12/20/2002
RICHARDSON - A coalition of North Texas Islamic groups lashed out at federal law enforcement Thursday, saying that religious discrimination motivated charges against four brothers accused of trying to hide investments by a Hamas political leader in their company.
The news conference included three of the brothers' teenage daughters, who talked about the deep community ties of their fathers. Federal agents arrested Ghassan, Bayan, Basman and Hazim Elashi early Wednesday on charges that their Richardson-based computer company, InfoCom Corp., hid investments by Mousa Abu Marzook, whom federal authorities have designated as a terrorist, and his wife, Nadia, and illegally shipped computers to Libya and Syria. Mr. Marzook and his wife also were indicted.
"Words can't describe to you how much I love my father and what a great man he is," said Iman Elashi, 17, crying softly. "Even today with him in jail, I can proudly say I am the daughter of Basman Elashi because I know that he is innocent. All he ever worries about is his children, and how he's going to pay the bills and how to help in developing ourselves in our lives.
"No one I know believes that my father is a bad man," she said. "Everyone that meets him, everyone that knows him, describes him with the same name: Angel."
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Nour Elashi, the 18-year-old daughter of Ghassan Elashi, said agents treated her father and uncles with cruelty, humiliating them in front of stunned family members during their arrests.
"These were four innocent men who came to America to escape injustice. ... Now they're staying behind bars," she said. "My own government is singling them out because of their race and religion at a time when we should all stand united as one nation to resist real terror."
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Stephens declined to respond to statements made at the news conference, as did Dallas FBI officials.
At the news conference at a Richardson hotel, about 200 supporters applauded the statements of several speakers.
Mohammed Elmougy, past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, questioned the timing of the arrests, coming years after authorities say they began investigating.
He suggested the raids in Dallas and elsewhere across the country were ordered to counteract the airing of a PBS documentary about the prophet Mohammed.
"It's no secret that Muslims nationwide have been publicizing this day for months," Mr. Elmougy said. "We hoped to defuse some of the bigoted remarks about Islam made by many hateful, prominent figures, including the attorney general [John Ashcroft] himself."
Khalid Hamideh, an attorney speaking on behalf of the coalition, questioned whether the four would receive a fair trial in a time when American Muslims feel "under siege."
"We all know that the anti-terrorism fervor running rampant in our country may prevent those four individuals receiving a fair trial in this venue," Mr. Hamideh said.
E-mail tbensman@dallasnews.com
Excerpt:
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Stephens declined to respond to statements made at the news conference, as did Dallas FBI officials.
At the news conference at a Richardson hotel, about 200 supporters applauded the statements of several speakers.
Mohammed Elmougy, past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, questioned the timing of the arrests, coming years after authorities say they began investigating.
He suggested the raids in Dallas and elsewhere across the country were ordered to counteract the airing of a PBS documentary about the prophet Mohammed.
"It's no secret that Muslims nationwide have been publicizing this day for months," Mr. Elmougy said. "We hoped to defuse some of the bigoted remarks about Islam made by many hateful, prominent figures, including the attorney general [John Ashcroft] himself."
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!
See excerpt in #2.....
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Ex-agent says criminal probe of InfoCom based on Holy Land data
12/20/2002
The FBI had conducted an intelligence-gathering operation on Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development almost since the self-styled Palestinian charity was established in California in 1989, the former head of the Dallas FBI office said Thursday.
Danny Defenbaugh, who retired from the FBI in May, said that he persuaded his superiors in 1999 to open a criminal investigation of InfoCom Corp., a Richardson Internet services business, based on information obtained on Holy Land Foundation.
The foundation's office in Richardson was across the street from InfoCom, which provided Internet services to the foundation. The two businesses shared some employees and one officer.
Holy Land Foundation, which moved to Richardson in 1992, first came to Mr. Defenbaugh's attention after he took over as special agent-in-charge of the Dallas FBI office in January 1998.
The following year, he said, he pressed the head of the FBI's counterterrorism section to let him begin a criminal case on InfoCom, a business whose officers included Ghassan Elashi, a co-founder and officer of Holy Land Foundation.
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Mr. Elashi and four of his brothers were indicted Tuesday on charges of doing business with a senior political leader of Hamas and shipping computer parts to two terrorist nations. The Hamas leader, Mousa Abu Marzook, and his wife, Nadia Marzook, also were indicted, along with InfoCom.
A detention hearing scheduled for the four men Friday afternoon will determine whether the men remain behind bars pending trial.
Authorities say Mr. Marzook, whom the federal government has designated a terrorist and who was deported in 1998, made an initial $150,000 investment in InfoCom in July 1992. Ten months later, a new account of $250,000 was created with InfoCom for Mrs. Marzook.
Mr. Marzook, speaking to The Associated Press from Syria, denied that InfoCom ever financed the Hamas movement and dismissed any ties between the two.
"The next few days will prove that all their allegations are null and void and have no legal foundations," he said.
The approach to pursuing criminal charges, Mr. Defenbaugh said, represented a break from longstanding FBI practice to monitor suspected terrorist fronts rather than prosecute them.
"Always before this, we would do a lot of these things as intelligence cases, and you end up playing chess with them all the time and get no results," Mr. Defenbaugh said.
His attitude toward suspected fronts like the foundation, he said, was: "They are supporting terrorism, let's go and prove it. Let's poke them back in the eye and see what happens."
An FBI memorandum dated one month before the government's December 2001 closure of Holy Land Foundation revealed that the bureau had been investigating the charity since at least October 1993.
The earliest date cited in the memo referred to a meeting of suspected Hamas leaders in Philadelphia. Among the participants was Mr. Elashi, the memo stated.
The memo, which described the use of wiretaps, informants and other intelligence sources, concluded that the foundation had been designated by top Hamas officials as the movement's primary fund-raiser in the United States.
Mr. Defenbaugh said he was not surprised it had taken a year since a federal terrorism task force searched InfoCom to return indictments against the company and its owners.
As more of the truckloads of documents seized from the company are analyzed, he said, there may be more action taken.
"We indicted from those search warrants," he said. "That clearly does not mean that the investigation is over with."
Mr. Marzook said he expected the eventual release of the Elashi brothers, saying there was no evidence to back up the charges against them. "They [the brothers] have no relation whatsoever to all these issues.
"These are political rather than legal measures addressed against Arabs and Muslims in the United States," said Mr. Marzook, who is deputy of the Hamas political office in Damascus.
E-mail smcgonigle@dallasnews.com
Hear hear.
Yep, our own backyards, bro... We had something on the news the other night about some suspicious characters on the ferry (across the James River) to Surry, where the Surry nuclear power plant is-- two women and two men-- the men paced up and down the ferry like they were casing the area and wouldn't answer the ferry workers when they approached 'em, and the women sat there and pumped the ferry workers with questions about "How deep is the water around the bank where the power plant is? How many people are on security duty at night?" And on like that... At least the workers had the good sense to alert authorities... The report didn't say whether these folks were taken into questioning or not...
The report also did not say what ethnicity they were, either. So I speculate they were not caucasian.
Works for me
Actually this is right out of the Al Queda handbook.
She should be arrested too for thinking it's okay to fund terrorism.
This is what it will take to catch folks like them - alert citizens blowing the whistle. Good for them! 
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