The Holy Land Foundation, a US based Muslim charity charged with filtering money to terrorist organization Hamas won a court battle last month. A judge decided that President Bush doesn't have the right to designate the entity, or any entity perhaps, a terrorist organization. You can read the Foundation's history here, even the EU designated them a terrorist organization.
Now they are using that ruling to press for a dismissal of all charges. In essence, it looks like a claim that it's their constitutional right to support groups such as Hamas, if they want - and the government shouldn't be allowed to label them, or interfere.
The US attorney's office is going to oppose the move. But would you want to place a bet against them, especially if they went shopping for a Liberal judge? Up until now, many have been complaining that the MSM doesn't label terrorists terrorists. If certain people get their way, our government may not be able to do it, either. Wouldn't that be grand?
DALLAS (AP) -- A Muslim charity accused of ties to terrorists has asked a federal judge to dismiss many of the charges the U.S. government filed against it after the 2001 terror attacks.
Lawyers for the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development based the request on a ruling last month by a federal judge in Los Angeles, who struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists.
Holy Land's lawyers argued in their motion, filed Monday in federal district court in Dallas, that a similar order by President Clinton, banning transactions with the militant group Hams, was also unconstitutional.
They said the order was vague and arbitrary, lacking any standards for why a group or individual was labeled a terrorist. They also argued that the order could be enforced in a discriminatory way by police officers and judges.
Lawyers for the now-defunct charity asked the court to dismiss more than two dozen counts of a lengthy indictment. They earlier asked the court to drop other charges.
Holy Land officials have said the group aided hospitals, schools and orphans in the West Bank and Gaza. Federal agents shut down the charity in 2001 after the government accused the group of funneling millions to the Palestinian militant group Hams.
The group and five of its officers are scheduled to go on trial in July in Dallas.
The group's former chairman, Ghassan Elashi, was sentenced last month to nearly seven years in prison in a separate case for having financial ties to a high-ranking Hams official and making illegal computer exports to countries that support terrorism. A judge allowed Elashi to remain free to help attorneys prepare for the Holy Land trial.
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