Two high ranking Hamas members on trial in the US

Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48, of Alexandria, Va. and Muhammad Salah, 53, a suburban Chicago grocer, leave the federal building after the second day of their trial Friday, Oct. 20, 2006. Ashqar and Salah are charged in a four-count racketeering indictment with furnishing the money and fresh recruits to Hamas.

Federal prosecutors charge that Muhammad Salah of Bridgeview, IL and Abdelhaleem Ashqar of suburban Washington, D.C., aided terrorism from the United States as active members of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas.

(Chicago Tribune) "Since at least 1989, these two defendants have supported and aided Hamas from right here in the United States," [Assistant US Atty. Carrie] Hamilton said.

Hamilton detailed a conversation federal agents recorded between Ashqar and a top Hamas member in which they allegedly discussed a suicide bomber who blew himself up before reaching his final destination.

She told jurors that agents seized thousands of documents related to Hamas from Ashqar's previous home in Oxford, Miss.

And what do you know? Back in 2004, while living in the US, Abdelhaleem Ashqar was running for president of the Palestinian Authority.

Below is his campaign poster. Note that he is wearing a GPS ankle bracelet in the bottom right inset.

(Chicago Tribune) The only evidence that Salah was a Hamas leader comes from a statement he gave while in Israeli custody in 1993, [Salah's attorney] Deutsch said.

The statement was the product of physical and psychological torture Salah endured for more than 50 days and should not be considered as evidence in a U.S. court, he said.

Hamilton said that Salah provided the statement voluntarily and that it included damning corroborating evidence, including Salah's knowledge of the burial site of an Israeli soldier kidnapped and murdered by members of Hamas.

Salah spent four years in an Israeli prison after confessing to being a leader of Hamas. He returned to the U.S. in 1997 and was immediately put under federal surveillance.

Have you noticed that a week doesn't go by without a news that Muslim terrorists or terrorism supporters go on trial?

Crossposted at Eye On The World.