Two major Muslim organizations, the North American Islamic Trust and the Islamic Society of North America, are arguing that the government’s evidence of their ties to Hamas is old and, in any event, is no excuse for a decision by prosecutors to name the American groups publicly as unindicted co-conspirators in a criminal case.
“Assuming the authenticity of the documents’ dates, the most recent documents to mention either ISNA or NAIT are dated 1991,” an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing the two groups, Hina Shamsi, wrote in a brief filed in federal court in Dallas yesterday. “Almost all of the numerous exhibits that purport to show financial transactions and that contain any mention of ISNA or NAIT are dated 1988 and 1989 … almost a decade before the majority of the overt acts the government alleged in support of its conspiracy charges.” The filing also notes that the American government did not designate Hamas as a terrorist group until 1995.
Last May, prosecutors pursuing a terrorism-support case against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and five of its officers filed court documents listing more than 100 groups and individuals as unindicted co-conspirators. NAIT and ISNA were included as groups that are part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is closely related to Hamas.
A lawyer for NAIT and ISNA, which were never charged with a crime, negotiated with the government about having their names removed from the list, but the government never formally moved to do so. The trial ended in October with no convictions, some acquittals, and a mistrial on counts where jurors could not reach a verdict.
Last month, with a retrial approaching, NAIT and ISNA asked a federal judge to strike them from the list and to sanction the government for violating their rights. In a response last week, prosecutors did not directly address the propriety of naming the groups before trial, but said there was no recourse at this point because exhibits admitted at the trial showed an “intimate relationship” involving the groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Holy Land defendants.
NAIT and ISNA said in their brief that the government’s response and reports on it by The New York Sun and the Associated Press “exacerbated the injury” the groups have suffered. “The government utterly fails to grasp the singular weight and consequence that an official accusation of criminal conduct carries in our criminal justice system and in our society,” Ms. Shamsi wrote.
Judge Jorge Solis has given no indication of when he will rule on the groups’ request. Another Muslim group on the unindicted co-conspirator list, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filed a similar motion before another judge last year. It is still pending.