Holy Land Foundation Mistrial: What's Next? (UPDATED)

Check out LGF on the verdict. One of the things that you find while sorting through the ashes of defeat--it ain't over. There is general agreement on 2 points: (1) There is plenty of evidence to support their case and (2) The prosecutors need to streamline their case for the jurors

From Lawhawk:

There is simply too many linkages and ties between Hamas and Holy Land Foundation to be coincidence. Hamas uses HLF for fundraising and getting its message out, and CAIR knows damned well that they're shilling for terrorists.

This was not a stunning defeat, but it definitely is a wakeup call for the Justice Department to do a far better job prosecuting these cases than it has up til [sic] now.

Crunchy Con:

Anyway, it was a bad day for the government, but this story is not over yet. There is a retrial to come. The government is going to have to do something about its strategy, though. Moreover, a lot of useful information came out of this trial, particularly about how the Muslim Brotherhood runs the show among the US Muslim community's main organizations. This is by no means trifling information.

Investor's Business Daily outlines the reasons for hope that justice is done:

Federal prosecutors say they'll retry the case against leaders of the Holy Land Foundation, the nation's largest Muslim charity, which they accused of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas terrorists.

...Barring plea bargains, the U.S. will narrow its charges and refile them — hopefully with a new judge. U.S. District Judge Joe Fish barred key evidence helping prosecutors prove willful intent to support terror on the part of defendants.

For example, he threw out a dozen documents seized by the Israeli government in raids of Hamas fronts that would have tied the Dallas-based charity closer to the terror group.

...No doubt they'll streamline their evidence, highlighting the more powerful exhibits, including:

• FBI wiretaps of a meeting in Philadelphia between Holy Land and Hamas big shots in which Holy Land's director is overheard scheming to disguise payments to Hamas as charity, noting that "war is deception."

• Testimony from FBI agents that Holy Land flew Hamas clerics to the U.S. to help raise funds at mosques.

• Videos of a Holy Land defendant pretending to kill an Israeli during a Hamas fundraising skit held at one mosque.

• Key chains, videos and posters praising suicide bombers found inside the Hamas front "committees" that Holy Land helped bankroll.

...Lawyers for the accused expect us to believe that all this suspicious activity was merely an attempt to help needy Palestinians with "vaccinations" and "rice." Civil juries haven't fallen for the subterfuge.

In 2004, for example, a jury awarded $156 million to a family of a Chicago teen killed by a Hamas gunman supported by Holy Land. A federal appeals court has upheld a D.C. court's ruling that there is "ample evidence" to support the Treasury Department's 2001 decision to designate Holy Land a terror organization and freeze its assets.

This is not over--not by a long shot. Unindicted co-conspirator CAIR is not off the hook yet. This not about being anti-Muslim or anti-Islam. Let's not forgot the Muslim Brother (Ikhwan) memo introduced at the trial:

The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.

That is why we cannot afford to give these people them any slack.

UPDATE: If American Thinker is right, there is new information connecting Hamas to charities:

Last week, the Palestinian Authority closed down all of the zakat committees because of their ties to HAMAS. The decision, announced last Thursday by Jamal Bawattna, PA Minister of Religious Endowments, strikes at the key contention of the defense in the Holy Land case - that the zakat committees who received funds from the Holy Land Foundation had no known ties to HAMAS. While this angle hasn't been reported in the Western press, the English-language jihadist forums have been abuzz with the news (CAUTION: link is to the HAMAS al-Qassam website).

This comes from Haberodasi, which seems to be a Turkish site. If accurate, Hamas seems to be awfully obliging in admitting their part running these charities:

For his part, Dr. Saleh al-Ruqub, deputy minister of endowments and religious affairs in the caretaker government in Gaza stated to the Palestine newspaper that the real aim behind Bawattna´s decision is those members of the Zakat committees who are affiliated with Hamas and to replace them with loyal elements from Fatah.

Dr. Ruqub charged that Fayyad´s unconstitutional government intends to seize the funds collected from Zakat and distribute them to Fatah members and their loyalists, pointing out that Hamas has, over the years, proved to be competent and honest in running those committees and Fatah seems to think by depriving Hamas of the Zakat committees they will deprive the movement of something that helped make it popular.

American Thinker also points to the Investigative Project that there have been a total of 3 trials--2 federal and one civil--that have established the terrorist connection of the Holy Land Foundation.

There may be good reason to expect a different result from retrial.

There are other posts on this and other trials of terrorists in the US here.

[Hat tip: Larwyn]

Technorati Tag: Holy Land Foundation Trial.