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US 'may rethink terror cases'
24/10/2007 17:26 - (SA)
Washington - The US government's failure this week to win a conviction in a major case of alleged terrorism financing is a sign it may be targeting the wrong suspects and needs to rethink its prosecution strategy, legal experts say.
A judge in Dallas declared a mistrial on Monday on most counts against an Islamic charity - the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development - and several men linked to it who were accused of illegally funnelling money to the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
The government vowed to retry the case, but legal experts said it faces obstacles in prosecuting charitable groups and terrorism cases in general.
"This case shows that we have not done our homework," said Karen Greenberg, executive director of New York University's Centre for Law and Security. "It's conveying an impression to the American people that we don't know how to do this."
The complex set of charges in the Holy Land case included conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organisation, money laundering and filing a false tax return.
The jury acquitted one defendant on most charges, but mistrials were declared on one count against him and for all four of his co-defendants across the board.
Greenberg and other experts said the government must focus its zeal for prosecution, pursue better evidence and simplify the cases it presents.
"What we want is to prosecute the right guy," Greenberg said.
Studies by the NYU centre over the six years to September 2007 found that of 619 defendants in federal cases potentially involving terrorism, 196 were indicted on actual terrorism charges.
The centre said the government used a "scattershot approach" in charging terrorism suspects and showed a preference for early arrests rather than accumulating strong evidence over time.
Of the 196 terrorism defendants, 62 have been convicted, according to NYU centre figures. Only one case, the conviction last year of Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Martin Siraj for planning to bomb a New York subway station, involved the archetypal terrorism scenario of a suspected clandestine cell seeking to carry out an attack on US soil, the centre said.
Justice Department statistics list 525 defendants in terrorism or "terrorism-related" cases in the same six-year period, with 312 convictions or guilty pleas.
The Holy Land case followed an investigation lasting several years. The government said money the group passed to local charities in Palestinian areas was being funnelled to Hamas.
But the local charities had not been designated as terrorist groups, making it hard for prosecutors to prove a link, Georgetown University law professor David Cole said.
Since the September 11 attacks, the US government has shut down as many as 12 charities on suspicion of financing groups designated as terrorist.
Juries can become overwhelmed in a complex case with multiple charges, said Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Centre for Terrorism Law at St Mary's University School of Law in Texas.
"You have to keep it simple. If you look at the case and the number of charges that were brought ... they may want to reduce the number of charges on the next go-around."
- Reuters
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