By Rudolph Bush and Azam Ahmed
Ttibune staff reporters
January 10, 2007, 8:23 PM CST
Muhammad Salah was trying to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people when he became a pawn of Israeli officials seeking to influence U.S. policy, his lawyer argued Wednesday.
Firing back after two days of prosecution arguments, Salah's lawyer, Michael Deutsch, attacked the case against his client, a Bridgeview businessman accused of being a leading member of the radical Palestinian group Hamas.
An attorney for Salah's co-defendant, Abdelhaleem Ashqar, also gave his final argument, telling jurors that Ashqar resisted Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories but insisted on following the law.
Deutsch's argument focused on the heart of the government's case: a handwritten confession and statements that Salah allegedly provided while in Israeli custody in 1993.
To accept Salah's guilt, jurors must accept a confession extracted through torture, Deutsch said.
"You can say we're not going to have a case in an American courtroom that's based on a foreign government's systematic use of torture," Deutsch said.
Prosecutors charge Salah, a U.S. citizen, and Ashqar, a longtime resident, with using the safe haven of this country to transfer funds, coordinate operations and provide other aid to Hamas, an organization responsible for many terrorist attacks.
Arrested by Israeli police in Gaza in January 1993, Salah confessed to being a Hamas military commander during 54 days of interrogation that included physical and psychological torments, Deutsch said.
Jurors should reject the testimony of two Israeli interrogators, "Nadav" and "Benny," that Salah confessed voluntarily, Deutsch said.
The interrogators, who testified under official aliases, lied constantly on the stand, Deutsch said.
Prosecutors acknowledged in court that Israeli interrogators were permitted to use coercive tactics such as hooding prisoners and forcing them to sit handcuffed in a small chair. Nadav and Benny denied Salah was subjected to such treatment.
"They want you to believe he was a military commander who cooperated without any coercion or torture," Deutsch said.
He told jurors that it was the other way around--Salah had no militant background but was tortured into saying he did.
The purpose of his arrest, torture and confession was an intrigue developed at the highest levels of the Israeli government to convince the FBI that Hamas was developing cells in the U.S., Deutsch said.
While access to Israeli interrogation facilities is extremely limited, a New York Times reporter, through the intervention of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was permitted to view an interrogation session of Salah.
The reporter, Judith Miller, testified that as a result she wrote a front-page story stating that Hamas was developing cells in the U.S.
"No one in the U.S. government really believed the U.S. was an important haven for Hamas," Deutsch said. Miller testified that her article began to change that skepticism.
Wednesday's arguments by the defense attorneys were steeped in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the hardships they say the Palestinians have endured.
Palestinians often lack access to basic services such as medical care, fresh water, sewage systems and schools, both defense attorneys said.
Humanitarian issues became a major focus in the trial, as Deutsch argued that Salah carried funds to the territories to ease the suffering of his people, not for militant operations.
Salah was captured in 1993 with $100,000 in cash. Bank records show Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook had transferred him nearly $1 million, which prosecutors said was intended to fund violence.
But the money transfers were completely transparent, and they went through Salah's personal bank account, Deutsch said. That is not the practice of someone funding illicit operations, he said.
Ashqar's attorney, William Moffitt, compared the struggle of Palestinians to historic fights against repression, from the American Revolution to the civil rights movement. He showed jurors a mock "wanted" poster charging George Washington with terrorism.
Ashqar is accused of coordinating communication for Hamas and archiving key documents.
Moffitt argued that creating a historical archive was Ashqar's right as a Palestinian.
"They have every right to be the first authors of their history," he said.
Moffitt briefly addressed a series of secretly recorded conversations in which Ashqar discussed violent operations by Hamas. He said that despite the disturbing nature of the calls, Ashqar is never heard planning any militant attacks or recruiting anyone to perform such acts.
Moffitt pointed to a secretly recorded statement by Ashqar in which he told alleged fellow Hamas members, "Anything we undertake must be a studied legal work."
Both defense lawyers questioned the timeliness of the government's 2004 indictment, pointing out that nearly all of the charges in the case stem from events that occurred in the early 1990s.
After Salah was released from Israeli custody in 1997, he returned home to Bridgeview under strict government scrutiny. Yet prosecutors produced no evidence that Salah did anything on behalf of Hamas from the time of his return to the U.S. to the present, Deutsch said.
"This is not a case about terrorism but about fairness and justice," he said.
aahmed@tribune.com
Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune
See Also
Associated Press
Published January 10, 2007, 6:02 PM CST
CHICAGO -- Developments at the trial of two men on charges of furnishing funds
and recruits to Hamas terrorists.
ON TRIAL: Former Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah, 53, of suburban Bridgeview, and Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48, of Springfield, Va., a former assistant professor of business at Washington's Howard University. They are charged with racketeering and other offenses connected with Hamas.
WEDNESDAY'S ACTION: Defense attorneys delivered closing arguments, saying the two men never violated the law but merely sought to help poverty-plagued Palestinians suffering under Israeli military occupation.
COMING UP: Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid J. Schar is due to deliver the government's rebuttal arguments after which a jury will deliberate the evidence in the three-month trial before federal Judge Amy J. St. Eve.