Nov 24, 2008 3:41 pm US/Central
Guilty Verdicts In Holy Land Foundation Retrial
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DALLAS (CBS 11 News/AP) ―
A federal jury in Dallas has convicted a Richardson-based Muslim charity and five former leaders on all 108 charges in a retrial of their terrorism financing case.
The verdict came after eight days of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development -- once the nation's largest Muslim charity and a banner government target of alleged terrorism fundraising on American soil.
Holy Land was found guilty of giving more than $12 million to support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 1995 and made supporting the group illegal.
Jurors convicted the Muslim charity and five of its former leaders on all 108 charges, including - c
onspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
After the verdict was read crying from the defendants families could be heard in the courtroom.Outside the courtroom there was a more stoic reaction. "We're just shocked. We'll have spokespeople to come down and speak to you," Sarah Adel-Aziz, the director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, told CBS 11 News. "That's just all we want to say. We're just shocked."The charity's first trial, in 2007, ended in a mistrial for five of the six defendants and not guilty verdicts on most counts for the sixth defendant.
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