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Prosecutor tries to connect dots; defense raises doubts

Is a letter evidence of a fundraising front for the Islamic Jihad? Or really meant to help orphans?

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published June 9, 2005

In the Sami Al-Arian trial today, prosecutors continued entering evidence seized from the Nov. 25, 1995, search of WISE headquarters, or World & Islam Studies Enterprise. In that search the FBI took 50 boxes of material.

As he did Wednesday, prosecutor Terry Zitek again pointed out the logo of the PIJ on seized papers, in an attempt to connect the workings of WISE in the early '90s to the PIJ, which has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings in Israel.

The prosecutor also entered into evidence photos of Al-Arian, Sameeh Hammoudeh and others (who became defendants in 2003) at conferences in the early 1990s for the Islamic Committee for Palestine. They are shown with people whom the US government later identified as PIJ leaders.

At the time, these people were given visas by the U.S. government to go to Chicago to speak at the ICP conferences.

The government also entered into evidence a letter from the Muslim Women's Society, which the government alleges is a government front for getting money to the PIJ. The letter requested donations for Palestinian orphans.

Curiously, this same piece of evidence was used by the defense for their purposes: To make the point that money was raised for orphans, not to fund the PIJ.

Defense attorney William Moffitt again questioned how evidence was logged in and stored and if it was possible to know that what was being presented as seized in the 1995 raid of WISE headquarters had actually come from there.

[Last modified June 9, 2005, 13:10:02]