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<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0701050331jan05,1,2565136.story?coll=chi-newslocalssouthwest-hed">
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0701050331jan05,1,2565136.story?coll=chi-newslocalssouthwest-hed</a>
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</font><h1><b>Hamas-case defense rests<br>
</b></h1><h2><b>Bridgeview man's attorneys again suggest his confession
was coerced</b></h2><font size=3>By Rudolph Bush<br>
Tribune staff reporter<br><br>
January 5, 2007<br><br>
Defense attorneys for a Bridgeview man accused of being a leading member
of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas rested their case in federal
court Thursday after again putting the issue of torture squarely before
jurors.<br><br>
The trial of Muhammad Salah has hinged largely on whether he voluntarily
confessed to Israeli authorities in 1993 that he was Hamas' military
commander or if he was tortured into complying with whatever demands his
captors made.<br><br>
A Turkish psychiatrist, Dr. Metin Basoglu, sought to bolster the defense
argument Thursday with testimony that anyone who suffers prolonged
mistreatment at the hands of interrogators is "very likely" to
comply with their demands.<br><br>
An expert on the trauma of torture, Basoglu had no firsthand knowledge of
Salah's treatment by Israeli interrogators.<br><br>
Testifying via video from Istanbul, Basoglu said people with deep
commitments to political or military causes are less likely than ordinary
people to break quickly under torturous conditions.<br><br>
"Would a militant commander of a resistance group immediately
cooperate and continue to cooperate over a period of 54 days while being
interrogated by military police?" defense attorney Erica Thompson
asked, referring to the length of time Salah was under
interrogation.<br><br>
Basoglu could not answer the question after U.S. District Judge Amy St.
Eve sustained a prosecution objection.<br><br>
Still, he spoke for more than two hours about the effects of torture on
the human mind.<br><br>
Basoglu's testimony touched on many of the techniques Salah's lawyers
claim were used to extract a confession that led to his conviction and
4-year imprisonment in Israel.<br><br>
Such methods as sleep deprivation, hooding and being forced to sit
handcuffed in a child-size chair were legal techniques in Israel during
the time of Salah's detention, defense attorneys told jurors.<br><br>
Prosecutors stipulated that those methods were indeed legal at the
time.<br><br>
Earlier in the trial, two Israeli interrogators who questioned Salah
testified that he was treated well and provided detailed, high-level
information about Hamas that was corroborated by other sources.<br><br>
Before court opened Thursday morning, Salah and his co-defendant,
Abdelhaleem Ashqar of suburban Washington D.C., greeted a long line of
supporters waiting outside St. Eve's courtroom.<br><br>
Smiling and seemingly confident, both men shook hands with friends, many
of them young Muslim men and women, and thanked them for coming to view
the proceedings.<br><br>
Many of them said the defendants are gentle family men who have been
falsely accused of being members of Hamas.<br><br>
Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organization whose charter calls for
the destruction of Israel. The group has been responsible for dozens of
suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks in Israel, the West Bank and
Gaza.<br><br>
Prosecutors charge that Salah used his U.S. citizenship as cover to
transport hundreds of thousands of dollars to the West Bank and Gaza for
use by the military wing of Hamas.<br><br>
They also allege he tried to recruit and train new Hamas members in the
U.S.<br><br>
Ashqar, who was educated in the U.S. but is not a citizen, is accused of
acting as a sort of switchboard for Hamas, connecting members with one
another over the telephone and passing along information. Prosecutors
also charge that he was a Hamas archivist who collected and stored key
documents.<br><br>
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin Monday, with
prosecutors pointing to evidence they will argue proves Salah was a
high-ranking member of Hamas.<br><br>
They are expected to refer jurors back to a trail of money transfers
between Salah and other alleged Hamas members.<br><br>
Salah's attorneys, meanwhile, are likely to return to arguments made in
opening statements nearly four months ago--that Salah was taking money to
the West Bank and Gaza to ameliorate the suffering of people living under
Israeli occupation.<br><br>
----------<br><br>
rrbush@tribune.com <br><br>
Copyright © 2007,
<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest//">
Chicago Tribune</a> <br><br>
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