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In fundraising probe, Palestinian activist may face more charges: Federal prosecutors indicated Monday new charges might soon be filed related to a long-running Chicago grand jury probe of fundraising for the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The disclosure came during a court hearing for Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, a Palestinian activist from Virginia facing federal charges for refusing to testify before the grand jury despite a grant of immunity. The grand jury wanted to question Ashqar about his relationship with Hamas and its members. Ashqar was initially indicted last year on one count of criminal contempt, and a new indictment handed...

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...

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...

Counterterrorism efforts got a major boost last week when a U.S. district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing $156 million. The four were found liable for their roles in the murder of an American teenager, David Boim, on May 13, 1996, when he was shot by Hamas operatives as he waited for a bus near Jerusalem. This case is important in itself, providing some measure of justice and relief for the Boim family. Beyond that, it helps fight terrorism in four ways. First,...

Counterterrorism efforts got a major boost last week when an American district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing US$156 million. The four were found liable for their roles in the murder of an American teenager, David Boim, on May 13, 1996, when he was shot by Hamas operatives as he waited for a bus near Jerusalem. This case is important in itself, providing some measure of justice and relief for the Boim family. Beyond that, it helps fight terrorism in four ways.First, it...

CHICAGO (AP) — Lawyers for the family of an American teenager gunned down in Israel's West Bank urged a jury Wednesday to make U.S.-based Islamic groups pay millions of dollars in damages for allegedly helping finance terrorism. "The international terrorist group Hamas has some of its biggest supporters right here in the United States," Richard M. Hoffman, attorney for the family of the slain teen, said in the penalty phase of a civil trial against several Islamic groups and an alleged Hamas fund-raiser. U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled earlier this month that Hamas was responsible for the shooting of...