Appeals court Removes "Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator" Status For CAIR, ISNA, NAIT

From Jihad Watch:

Appeals Court removes "unindicted co-conspirator" status for CAIR, ISNA, NAIT


This means CAIR is officially "moderate," right?



Well, let's look at the record: CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.



CAIR has attempted to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers, and in doing so retailed numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about me, SIOA, and Pamela Geller.



CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.



Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.



Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:



* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians

* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.

* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.

* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.

* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.



In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."



After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.



CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."



I wonder whether Judge Solis considered all this.



"Court removes 'co-conspirator' tag from Muslim groups," from the Jewish Telegraph Agency, October 22 (thanks to Abu Lahab):



WASHINGTON (JTA) -- In a decision that could inhibit efforts to stigmatize some Islamic groups, a U.S. appeals court ordered that a lower court's reference to a group's association with Hamas be expunged.

The New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released its decision on an appeal from the North American Islamic Trust on Wednesday. It was first reported that day by Politico's Josh Gerstein.



Last year, Jorge Solis, a U.S. District Court judge in Dallas, ruled that NAIT and 245 other entities and individuals had their Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination violated when prosecutors listed them as unindicted co-conspirators in the federal case against the Holy Land Foundation, which had been charged with providing material assistance to Hamas.



Among the other groups vindicated by Solis were the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.



The government acknowledged that not sealing the list was an oversight, and further said its intent was to list the groups and individuals as "joint venturers," which suggests a weaker association than "unindicted co-conspirator" and does not imply that the entity had knowledge of the alleged crimes.



NAIT, which owns a number of mosques, nonetheless appealed the decision because Solis ordered the decision sealed -- apparently in a bid to protect the reputation of those on the list. CAIR and ISNA did not join this appeal.



The three-judge appeals panel ordered Solis' decision unsealed and expunged one reference to past NAIT associations with Hamas, but left in another.



By clearing CAIR and ISNA of "unindicted co-conspirator" status, the unsealing of Solis' decision could have political consequences, as a number of conservative and pro-Israel groups had used the label to tar politicians associated with the groups....



Posted by Robert on October 22, 2010 12:15 PM