By MIKE ROBINSON
AP Legal Affairs Writer
Published December 12, 2006, 6:46 PM CST
CHICAGO -- Federal prosecutors rested their case Tuesday at the trial of two
men charged with funneling cash and fresh recruits to Hamas terrorists trying
to topple the Israeli government.
U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve sent jurors who already have sat through two months of the complex racketeering trial home and told them to return next week when defense attorneys are expected to call witnesses.
But attorneys said closing arguments in the trial of former Chicago grocer
Muhammad Salah, 53, and former university professor Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48,
may not come until after a holiday break.
Salah was arrested in Israel in 1993 and $90,000 in cash was found in his hotel room. He served almost five years in prison there. Prosecutors say the money was destined to help Hamas rebuild its military structure.
But Salah, of suburban Bridgeview, says he is not a Hamas member and that the money was destined for Palestinian charities.
Ashqar, of Alexandria, Va., controlled a number of bank accounts that prosecutors say supplied cash to Hamas. He says the money was for charity.
While jurors won't be back until next week, prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to battle over an array of issues Wednesday.
Among other things, St. Eve is expected to hear arguments on whether to allow Salah's chief defense counsel, Michael E. Deutsch, to call as a witness an expert on U.S. lobbying groups supporting Israel on Capitol Hill.
Norman Finkelstein of Chicago's DePaul University, took the stand Tuesday night to give the judge a sampling of his expertise. He claimed Israel has sought to influence American reporters and the result has been a bias in favor of that nation in the U.S. news media.
Deutsch said after court that he wants jurors to hear from Finkelstein as a counter to prosecution witness Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter, who testified that she saw Salah being interrogated.
Finkelstein said Israel has tortured Palestinian detainees.
Salah claims he was tortured by Israel's Shin Bet security service into admitting that he was aiding Hamas while Miller said he appeared "jaunty" at the interrogation and that she saw no evidence that he was being tortured.
Prosecutors led off the trial in October by calling two Shin Bet interrogators who testified under aliases in a courtroom that had been cleared of spectators that Salah was not mistreated by their organization.
Deutsch said he hopes to call two witnesses who are experts on Shin Bet interrogation methods and Israeli human rights attorney Avigdor Feldman, who represented Salah before a military tribunal in that country.
Copyright © 2006, The Associated Press