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<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-070110salah,1,1684584.story?coll=chi-news-hed">
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-070110salah,1,1684584.story?coll=chi-news-hed</a>
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</font><h1><b>Hamas suspects defended<br>
</b></h1><h2><b>Defense lawyer says Bridgeview man was victim of Israeli
plot</b></h2><font size=3>By Rudolph Bush and Azam Ahmed<br>
Ttibune staff reporters<br><br>
January 10, 2007, 8:23 PM CST<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
To accept Salah's guilt, jurors must accept a confession extracted
through torture, Deutsch said.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Jurors should reject the testimony of two Israeli interrogators,
"Nadav" and "Benny," that Salah confessed
voluntarily, Deutsch said.<br><br>
The interrogators, who testified under official aliases, lied constantly
on the stand, Deutsch said.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"They want you to believe he was a military commander who cooperated
without any coercion or torture," Deutsch said.<br><br>
He told jurors that it was the other way aroundSalah had no militant
background but was tortured into saying he did.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Palestinians often lack access to basic services such as medical care,
fresh water, sewage systems and schools, both defense attorneys
said.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Ashqar is accused of coordinating communication for Hamas and archiving
key documents.<br><br>
Moffitt argued that creating a historical archive was Ashqar's right as a
Palestinian.<br><br>
"They have every right to be the first authors of their
history," he said.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"This is not a case about terrorism but about fairness and
justice," he said.<br><br>
<i><a href="mailto:rrbush@tribune.com">rrbush@tribune.com<br><br>
</a><a href="mailto:aahmed@tribune.com">aahmed@tribune.com</a></i>
<br><br>
Copyright © 2007,
<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom//">Chicago
Tribune</a> <br><br>
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