This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.The Holy Land Foundation (HLF, Arabic: مؤسسة الأرض المقدسة للإغاثة والتنمية, romanized: muʾassasa al-ʾarḍ al-muqaddasatu lil-ʾighātha wat-tanmiya, lit.
[8][9] In 2004, a federal grand jury in Dallas, Texas, charged HLF and five former officers and employees with providing material support to Hamas and related offenses.
[10] Simultaneously, in November 2004, U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled that HLF, along with the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), were liable for the 1996 killing of 17-year-old David Boim in Israel.
[11] This decision was the first time U.S. citizens or organizations were held liable under a 1990 federal law that permitted victims of terrorism to sue for civil damages.
Two years later the OLF was incorporated by Baker, Ghassan Elashi, and Mohammad el-Mezain in California and renamed the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
On December 4, 2001, under Executive Order 13224 issued by President Bush, the Holy Land Foundation was designated a Domestic Terror Organisation and closed down.
[2] Ghassan Elashi, HLF chairman, was also vice president of InfoCom Corporation of Richardson, Texas, indicted along with Hamas' Marzook.
The two organizations were formed in California around the same time, and the Washington Institute has argued that both received seed money from Hamas leader Marzook.
[9] In 1993, one month after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Baker and Elashi participated in a public meeting in Philadelphia secretly recorded by the FBI.
"[33] Following this meeting, in 1994 the government searched the houses of two unindicted co-conspirators, Ismail Elbarasse and Abdelhaleen Masan Ashqar, where they found numerous documents labeling HLF as a fundraising arm for Hamas.
Treasury officials conceded that a "substantial amount" of the money raised went to worthy causes, but insisted that Holy Land's primary purpose had been to subsidize Hamas.
[37] Charges included: conspiracy, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, tax evasion, and money laundering.
The indictment alleged that the Holy Land Foundation provided more than $12.4 million to individuals and organizations linked to Hamas from 1995 to 2001, when their assets were frozen.
The indictment also named specific officers of the Holy Land Foundation: President Shukri Abu Baker; Chairman Ghassan Elashi; and Executive Director Haitham Maghawri, and four others: Mohammad el-Mezain, Akram Mishal, Mufid Abdulqader, and Abdulraham Odeh.
In December 2004, a federal judge in Chicago ruled that the Holy Land Foundation (along with the Islamic Association of Palestine and the Quranic Literacy Institute) was liable in a $156 million lawsuit for aiding and abetting the militant group Hamas in the death of a 17-year-old American citizen named David Boim.
[39] On November 3, 2008, the 7th Circuit "upheld in large measure a $156 million award to the parents of David Boim, a 17-year-old U.S. citizen murdered by members of Hamas while visiting Israel."
[45] The defendants attempted to motion for evidence collected under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) as unconstitutional, although the judge A. Joe Fish denied this request on February 27, 2007.
However, the government was ordered to provide the defendants with all "tangible underlying facts and data, not previously produced, upon which the ISA agent relies in reaching his opinion.
[49] The government did not allege that HLF paid directly for suicide bombings, but instead that the foundation supported terrorism by sending more than $12 million to charitable groups, known as zakat or charity committees, which provide social goods and services.
One video that implicated HLF leaders was surprisingly found buried in the backyard of Falls Church resident Marcial Peredo whose home was formerly occupied by Fawaz Mushtaha who played in the same band as one of the defendants.
[55] The New York Times reported: "The decision today is 'a stunning setback for the government, there's no other way of looking at it,' said Matthew D. Orwig, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal who was, until recently, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.
The LA Times reported that Georgetown University law professor David Cole said: "If the government can shut them down and then not convince a jury the group is guilty of any wrongdoing, then there is something wrong with the process".
"Today's verdicts are important milestones in America's efforts against financiers of terrorism," Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security, said after the trial.
The five convicted individuals were Ghassan Elashi, former CEO Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad El-Mezain.
[72] Peled also argued that none of the recipients of aid were family members of suicide bombers and questions why the Hamas as continued to flourish since the foundation shut down.
[7][73] According to Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, the trial was a "grave miscarriage of justice" and "capitalized on post-9/11 Islamophobic hysteria" in order to convict the Holy Land Five.
Pulitzer Prize journalist Chris Hedges describes it as "one of the most egregious cases of injustice committed to date against Muslim leaders in the United States.
"[74][75] 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.
[14] On November 24, 2022, Within Our Lifetime, the Coalition for Civil Freedoms and the Samidoun Prisoner Network launched a campaign to release the Holy Land Five.
In March 2006, the USAID mission to Tel Aviv eliminated a requirement to periodically reevaluate partners resulting in a lack of scrutiny for organizations later tied to terrorists.