USA-MASSACHUESETTES: ***UPDATE***FREEDOM OF RELIGION USED AS DEFENSE FOR JIHAD FUND RAISING***UPDATE***

Prosecutors deny Islamic case violates rights


WORCESTER— Prosecutors have replied to claims that religious discrimination and the First Amendment are factors in a criminal case brought against two former officers of a defunct Islamic charity.

Emadeddin Z. Muntasser of Braintree and Muhammed Mubayyid of Shrewsbury are accused of misleading the government about the nature of Care International, a charity the government claims supported jihadist and mujahedin organizations. They are awaiting trial in U.S. District Court.

On Oct. 5, lawyers for both defendants submitted a motion asking a judge to dismiss the case, claiming that the alleged criminal conduct is protected by the First Amendment. The lawyers argued that Care was established to advance religious goals, that jihad is a religious concept and that support for the mujahedin, or Muslim holy warriors, is, according to some interpretations of the Koran, a religious command.

Prosecutors filed a 53-page response Nov. 21 to the defense team’s motion to dismiss, which argues that the case has nothing to do with freedom of religion, speech or the First Amendment.

“Criminally defrauding the government is not protected by the First Amendment,” the prosecutors’ response said. “The defendants’ argument leads to the absurd conclusion that any crime should be immune from prosecution if done in the name of religion, or through the medium of speech.”

Mr. Muntasser, who owns a chain of furniture stores based in Quincy, hired two nationally recognized lawyers to represent him, in addition to three others who continue to represent him. His lawyers now include Susan R. Estrich, a lawyer, author and media pundit, who managed Michael S. Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign, and Harvey A. Silverglate, a noted Cambridge criminal defense lawyer.

Mr. Silverglate responded to an e-mail seeking comment on the prosecutors’ response, and likened it to a lecture he once heard while in college, on Calvin Coolidge’s speeches.

“President Coolidge’s speeches were like wagon trains of words trekking across a desert in search of an idea. And when the words encountered an idea, they encircled the idea, whereupon the idea died of loneliness,” Mr. Silverglate wrote. “The analogy between President Coolidge’s speeches and the government’s brief is flawed in only one respect — there is not even a single relevant idea or argument contained in its 53 pages of exceedingly thin but verbose gruel. Not a single one of the defendant’s many arguments are answered in any relevant way.”

Mr. Silverglate also said in his e-mail that the prosecutors fail to say why his client and other American Muslims were not allowed to support the same causes that the U.S. government supported. The defense team argued in its motion to dismiss that the United States supported the Afghan mujahedin in the 1980s during the war against the Soviet Union, and that the government supported dozens of charities that sent money overseas to the same causes supported by Care.

“The world, of course, changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but the activities of these defendants and others must be viewed through a pre-September 11th prism, just as the similar activities of the United States government must be so viewed,” Mr. Silverglate wrote.

The prosecution’s memo contended that the indictment does not violate defendants’ First Amendment rights because they are not being prosecuted for their religious beliefs or speech but for concealing facts from the government in Care’s application for tax-exempt status and its tax returns.

“Defendants’ assertion that Care — and they themselves through Care — was engaged in religious activity does not mean that this prosecution implicates their Free Exercise rights. That is because defendants are charged with fraud and lying, and even defendants do not claim that fraud and lying were part of their religious practice or beliefs,” the prosecutors wrote.

The prosecutors argue that Care never mentioned that there was anything religious about its organization in its application to the Internal Revenue Service for tax exempt status and in subsequent tax returns, and that it did not file with the IRS as a church or religious organization. The memo also said that Care also did not mention that it engaged in religiously inspired activity, including the publication and distribution of materials that solicited money for armed fighters in overseas conflicts, and that there was no reference to jihad or mujahedin in any document filed with the government.

The two men are charged with scheming to conceal the fact that Care was an outgrowth of and successor to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, an organization that was implicated in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York on Feb. 26, 1993. The government contends that had the IRS known that Care’s activities were listed as distributing information about jihad and raising money for various jihadi groups, it would not have been granted 501c3 nonprofit status.

The government alleges that Care sent money to several overseas organizations that have been designated as terrorist or terrorist-supporting organizations by the U.S. Treasury Department since Sept. 11, 2001.

I believe I published a story about this before, but for the life of me I cannot seem to find it right now...

Pertinent Links:

1) Prosecutors deny Islamic case violates rights