Terror law used successfully in Hezbollah case
has uncertain future
July 8, 2002 Posted: 2:29 PM EDT (1829 GMT)
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- On the very day last month that
Mohamad Hammoud became the first person convicted under a 1996 law that
bans aid to terrorist groups, a federal judge in California declared the statute
unconstitutional.
Though federal prosecutors expect Hammoud's conviction to stand, questions
surround the future of the law as the government plans to use it against two major
defendants: the alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui and John Walker Lindh,
the American accused of taking up arms for the Taliban.
"With an issue this important, and with the questions being raised, it's something
the U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately take a look at," said Deke Falls, Hammoud's
lawyer. "I think th ey'll have to within the next three years."
On June 22, a federal jury in Charlotte found
Hammoud guilty of providing material support to the
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The 28-year-old
Lebanese-born Hammoud could spend the rest of his
life in prison.
Hammoud was accused by the government in March
of funneling profits from a cigarette-smuggling ring
to Hezbollah. He was convicted under a 6-year-old
law that prohibits aid to groups and individuals
classified as terrorist by the U.S. State Department.
After the verdict, U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad said the conviction opens a new front
in the war against terrorism.
"The fact that there are terrorist fund-raising cells in Charlotte means there are
terrorist fund-raising cells elsewhere," he said. "We will try to prosecute
elsewhere."
On the same day the verdict came down, U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi in
Los Angeles declared the law unconstitutional and threw out a March 2001 case
against seven people accused of directing charitable donations to an Iranian group
designated terrorist by the government.
Takasugi said the law violates foreign organizations' due process rights because it
gives them no opportunity to contest their terrorist designation.
For now, Takasugi's ruling has no effect beyond the Los Angeles case, and the
Justice Department has said it plans to appeal.
Hammoud also plans to appeal his conviction. Before his trial, defense lawyers in
the case raised objections that echoed Takasugi's ruling but were rejected by the
presiding judge.
Similar pretrial motions in the Lindh case, which is to be tried in Alexandria,
Virginia, were denied last month by a federal judge there.
Federal prosecutor Ken Bell, who tried the Hammoud case, said he does not believe
Hammoud's conviction could be overturned on due process grounds.
"Since Hezbollah claims to have no presence in the United States, in our opinion
they would have no due process rights to contest the designation" as a terrorist
organization, Bell said.
John Cline, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, lawyer who represented one of
Hammoud's co-defendants, said there are serious problems with the law, including
a provision that bars defendants charged with material support from contesting a
terrorist designation.
As the law is written, he said, "unless Hezbollah is willing to show up in a U.S.
court and challenge its designation, the designation is going to stand."
In yet another major case brought under the material-support law, the government
in April indicted New York defense attorney Lynne Stewart on charges of relaying
messages from her client, imprisoned blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, to an
Egypt-based terrorist group. A translator for Abdel-Rahman was also charged.
Cline said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say on the
material-support law and some post-September 11 legislation.
"The material support statute and some of the other recent legislation raise, I think,
very significant issues that require a balance between the rights of the individual and
the need for greater security in the country," he said. |
