A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"William Neal, who served on the first Holy Land jury, raised disturbing questions about the prosecution's tactics in an interview with Dallas radio station KRLD 1080. "They never proved -- they kept trying to show us stuff around the case, not the case. They presented to the jury, you know these committees, these organizations controlled by or on the behalf of Hamas, but they kept showing us blown-up buses and they kept showing us little kids in bomb belts reenacting Hamas leaders," he said. "It had nothing to do with the actual charges. It had nothing to do with the defendants."....Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the United States when the Bush administration shut it down in December 2001. On the heels of the September 11th attacks, Bush, Ashcroft and company wanted to show they were fighting the "war on terror" by pointing to the Holy Land case, and the arrest of its five officials. In an unusual move, prosecutors unveiled the list of more than 300 un-indicted co-conspirators, something that is kept secret under normal legal protocol. Many of those on the list were respected Muslim leaders who were shocked to find they were under suspicion for involvement in terrorist acts." (thanks Laila)