Published: July 03, 2008 02:40 pm            

Islamic Society files suit after alleged Hamas link

brian.kern@flyergroup.com



PLAINFIELD — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a Motion for Equitable Relief with the U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas, on behalf of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) after the nation’s largest Muslim community-based organization was named publicly as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in an alleged Hamas fundraising plot in May 2007.

Last year, federal prosecutors were unsuccessful in seeking criminal charges against a Texas-based charity organization known as the Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development (HLF). The U.S. government alleges that the HLF had conspired to provide as much as $12 million in material and financial support to Hamas, a banned terrorist organization known largely for targeted attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Jurors were deadlocked and the case was ultimately declared a mistrial, but not before the Justice Department named some 246 people and organizations (including ISNA) as unindicted co-conspirators in the plot, according to a published ACLU report.

The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), a Chicago-based organization once located in Plainfield, was also named on the co-conspirator’s list. Both ISNA and NAIT are seeking to have their names removed from the case as it approaches retrial in September.

In the 25-page motion, Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU Foundation of Texas, wrote that officials from ISNA and NAIT were shocked to learn that their organizations had been listed.

“The government provided no explanation, either in its 63-page brief, or in public statements, for its description of petitioners as unindicted co-conspirators,” Graybill wrote. “Petitioners ISNA and NAIT were both shocked by the government’s decision to name them as co-conspirators because they had not criminally conspired with the defendants or anyone else, and because they had previously been told by the government that it did not consider them to have done wrong.”

Graybill is presently on vacation and could not be reached for further comment, but her motion asserts that federal prosecutors told legal counsel from ISNA and the NAIT that the organizations were not subjects of the investigation and that naming them was “a legal tactic intended to permit the introduction of hearsay evidence.”

ISNA Director Dr. Louay Safi was in transit to Houston for a convention and could not be reached for comment on the ACLU motion, but Shariq Siddiqui, who attends ISNA’s mosque and serves as director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana, said he was pleased to see ISNA and the ACLU proceed with litigation.

“We support government efforts to prosecute terrorism everywhere across the world,” Siddiqui said. “The problem is that when you come up with a list of these unindicted co-conspirators that is supposed to be private and then make it public, it creates a condition where an organization is under a cloud of doubt without any way to seek legal recourse. The name comes up and it allows people to attack the organization unfairly and it’s basically a way to malign someone without having to go to court to do it.”

Siddiqui noted that the mere mention of a person or organization’s name in the course of an investigation is enough to have someone labeled as an unindicted co-conspirator. Therefore, an organization may not have any culpability whatsoever, and could still be labeled within the investigation.

The ACLU maintains that this is precisely what happened in the case of the ISNA and NAIT and that there has been “a profoundly harmful effect on their reputations and their ability to carry out their lawful social service and religious missions” as a result.

“I’m ecstatic that they are doing this because someone needs to go out there and show that this is a good organization with good Americans and good American values,” Siddiqui said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice said that a response would be forthcoming, but that it is being delayed in order to ensure compliance with a court-mandated gag order in the HLF case.

        

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