Merchant of Death
Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

Blood from Stones

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A Hung Jury in the Holy Land Foundation Case
In an ending worthy of a thriller, a Dallas judge today declared a mistrial in the case of the Holy Land Foundation. The government said it would retry the case. One person, Mohammed El-Mezain, was found not guilty of most of the charges against him.

The outcome in the complicated and high-stakes trial, which for the first time publicly laid bare the clandestine inner workings of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, was not unexpected. The NEFA Foundation has a complete, annotated list of the exhibits for viewing.

That, in the absence of a guilty verdict, is the tremendous benefit of this case. After years of obfuscation, smoke blowing, lying and torturing the truth beyond all recognition, the truth of the Muslim Brotherhood activity in this country is now available through primary source documents.

The evidence may, in the eyes of the jury, not show definitive proof of support for terrorist activities. But they do show definitive proof that CAIR, ISNA, ICNA and all the Muslim Brotherhood groups in this country came here with a markedly different purpose from what they claim, and they have gone through decades of deceit to conceal their true identities and purposes.

That alone should discredit them as interlocutors for the Muslim community in this country, a community these groups cannot rightfully claim to represent as there is no evidence to support their statements and their actual membership is a small fraction of those they claim to give voice to.

The jury deliberated 19 days before reaching a verdict. Clearly, there was a lot of discussion and attempts to digest the information in the government's largest terror finance case.

What added drama to the affair was that the sealed verdict given to Judge Joe Fish acquitted most of the defendants of most of the charges. However, when Fish polled the jury after reading the verdict, three of them said they did not agree with the acquittals. After a brief conference, Fish declared a mistrial.

Perhaps the prosecution tried to cram too much information in with a group of jurors largely unfamiliar with anything to do with the case. Perhaps the reliance on the testimony of Israeli intelligence agents was resented. Perhaps wading through the reams of documents with unfamiliar names and places was just overwhelming.

Whatever the reason, the saga will continue, likely for several more years by the time it is all over. In the mean time, many new avenues of research and understanding have been opened up thanks to the new documents now in the public domain.

I hope that, in the next trial, the government will learn from the mistakes of this one. The jury system is what we have and what I believe we should have. If fellow citizens are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, then they must vote their conscience.

In the mean time, I have learned a great deal.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
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