The Weight of Nothingness...

No Convictions in Trial Against Muslim Charity

David D. Cole, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, said the jury’s verdict called into question the government’s tactics of using secret evidence to freeze a charity’s assets. When, at trial, “they have to put their evidence on the table, they can’t convict anyone of anything,” he said. “It suggests the government is really pushing beyond where the law justifies them going.” Prosecutors were trying to show that the charity, based in a Dallas suburb, was not simply trying to help poor Palestinians, as Holy Land officials said, but was in fact an arm of the radical Islamic group Hamas; the 36 charges included conspiracy, money laundering and providing financial support to a foreign terrorist organization.

The case involved more than a decade of investigation, almost two months of testimony — including some from Israeli intelligence agents using pseudonyms — and mounds of documents, wiretap transcripts and even videotapes dug up in a backyard in Virginia.

But after more than 19 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted one of the five individual defendants of all but one charge, on which it deadlocked. Most jury members also appeared ready to acquit two other defendants of most charges, and failed to reach a verdict on the two principal organizers and on the foundation itself, which had been the largest Muslim charity in the United States until the government froze its assets in late 2001.