Ghassan Elashi (born 19 December 1953) is a Palestinian-American businessman who was sentenced to prison in 2008 for his work with the Holy Land Foundation, a group that was designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 2001.
[2] In 1990 Elashi, along with Shukri Baker and Mohammad Elmazain, founded the charitable group Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).
As a fully compliant charity its mission was to provide aid for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan.
In 1995 the HLF expanded its relief work to other areas including Bosnia, Albania (where their bakery supplied bread for US troops), Chechnya, Turkey and parts of Africa.
The HLF was the first Texas-based group to send funds to Oklahoma following the 19 April 1995 bombing, as well as blood donations and fifty volunteers fundraising.
[3] On 5 September 2001 the InfoCom offices were raided by around 80 agents from the FBI, US Customs, Secret Service, IRS, Commerce Department and local police.
The five Elashi brothers were arrested 18 December 2002 and charged with violating Export Administration Regulations and dealing with the property of Special Designated Terrorists.
[4][5] In a second trial that concluded in November 2008 (the first had ended in a mistrial), Elashi was convicted of terrorism financing crimes related to financial dealings with the Palestinian group, Hamas.
One indication of that uncertainty, the group states, is that the charitable committees that Holy Land was convicted of working with were never "placed on the U.S. government's list of organizations supporting terrorism.
[14] Human Rights Watch has condemned the trial as it was based on hearsay evidence and called on the Biden administration to release all 5 accused.