http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-plo03.html

BY NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporter

Abdelhaleem Ashqar is facing trial in Chicago, accused of funding terrorists, and is under house arrest in Virginia. But he said Thursday that won't keep him from seeking to replace Yasser Arafat as the next Palestinian leader.

Proclaiming that he detests bloodshed, Ashqar said he will run in the Jan. 9 Palestinian election as an independent and was able to collect 7,000 to 8,000 election petition signatures in less than 36 hours from his district of Putulkarm, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Under house arrest at his home in Alexandria, Va., the former Howard University professor said he is allowed to run as a Palestinian in captivity.

Ashqar, 46, made news last year after staging a hunger strike for nearly two months while in jail for refusing to testify before a Chicago-based grand jury about the terrorist organization Hamas. He was indicted in August along with Muhammad Salah of Bridgeview, accused of a 15-year racketeering conspiracy to fund Hamas by opening domestic bank accounts and laundering millions of dollars.

Ashqar dismissed the charges as politically motivated. At the same time, he pointed to the hunger strike and his terror funding case as possible appealing points to Palestinian supporters. "I think the Palestinians recognize this and say: 'He did what he did to serve his cause.' "

His attorney, Thomas Durkin, said he wasn't surprised by Ashqar's candidacy. "Dr. Ashqar has always had the courage of his convictions and has been an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights," Durkin said.

10 other candidates

He joins about 10 others who have announced their candidacy for Palestinian Authority president, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called Barghouti's candidacy "problematic."

But Ashqar said he has more resources with the use of a phone and a computer from home. He also can have visitors while under house arrest.

Ashqar said he wants a peaceful resolution with Israel, which, he said, cannot happen without U.S. involvement. He called on the United States to enforce resolutions against Israel that he said could help end the violence.

"I don't like to see any drop of blood shed. I don't like to see that, and I don't think there's a military solution for our conflict," Ashqar said. "I think permanent, just peace is the solution. Violence breeds violence, violence leads to violence, and I don't like to see personally anything like that."

Contributing: Bloomberg News