Saturday, September 27, 2008

Evidence Shows Holy Land Foundation Fundraising Arm of Muslim Brotherhood Plan to Infiltrate the U.S

IPT

Prosecutors Point to Bank Records and Other Exhibits to Justify Designation of ISNA and NAIT as Unindicted Co-Conspirators

After two days of background, prosecutors in the Hamas-support trial against five former officials at the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) got to the heart of their case Thursday, presenting evidence that the charity was the fundraising arm of a vast Muslim Brotherhood plan to help Hamas and to infiltrate the United States. In doing so, they showed how two active national organizations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and its parent, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) were both tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and to HLF. The Brotherhood is an 80-year-old Egyptian religious and political movement that seeks to instill Sharia, or Islamic law, as the controlling basis for society throughout the world. In court papers filed in July, prosecutors spelled out ISNA's and NAIT's connections to the case:

"During the early years of the HLF's operations HLF raised money and supported HAMAS through a bank account it held with ISNA and NAIT," prosecutors wrote earlier this summer. "ISNA checks deposited into the ISNA/NAIT account for the HLF were often made payable to "the Palestinian Mujahideen," the original name for the HAMAS military wing. From that ISNA/NAIT account, the HLF sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook; Nadia Elashi (defendant Ghassan Elashi's cousin and Marzook's wife), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's Islamic Center of Gaza, the Islamic University, and a number of other individuals associated with HAMAS."

In court Thursday, FBI Agent Lara Burns pointed to translated bank records showing a letter written in Arabic requesting payments to defendant Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker. ISNA and NAIT have petitioned the court to have their names removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case. Prosecutors pointed to those bank records and other exhibits in justifying the designation. The original petition was filed in June but U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis has not ruled on the request. IPT News, Sept 25, 2008

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