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Holy Land: $210,000 donated before man became militant leader
12/06/2001
Long before the U.S. government labeled the Holy Land Foundation for
Relief and Development a financial branch of Hamas, a top political leader
of the militant Palestinian movement was the Richardson group's largest
individual contributor.
Foundation officials have explained repeatedly that the $210,000
donation from Mousa Abu Marzook in 1992 was legal, reported on tax forms
and received before Mr. Marzook became a Hamas leader.
Foundation co-founders Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi have
described in interviews their relationship with Mr. Marzook, who is
married to Mr. Elashi's second cousin, as a casual one that did not
involve Palestinian politics.
"The Holy Land Foundation is clear and crisp and has no association with
terrorist organizations," Mr. Elashi said Wednesday.
But an FBI memorandum made available this week in conjunction with
President Bush's decision to close down the foundation and freeze its
assets depicts an almost paternal association between Mr. Marzook and
Holy Land.
According to the memo, which is based on at least eight years of
investigation, Mr. Marzook designated the Holy Land Foundation in 1994
as the primary fund-raising entity for Hamas in the United States.
Mr. Marzook first sent two senior Hamas activists from the Middle East
to a meeting in Oxford, Miss., to discuss the fund raising, and he later
chaired a meeting in Dallas on the same topic, the memo stated.
The foundation, which was established in California in 1989 and moved to
Richardson in 1992, describes itself as the largest American Muslim
charity. Last year, the foundation reported, it collected more than $13
million.
White House spokesman Ari Fleisher put the value of the frozen Holy Land
Foundation assets at $5 million as of Wednesday morning.
The foundation says it has provided relief money for tens of thousands
of poor Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as needy people
in the United States, the Balkans, and the Middle East.
The FBI memo stated that a former director of the Holy Land Foundation's
Gaza office was a Hamas activist and the nephew of a Palestinian man
with whom Mr. Marzook shared a bank account.
Mr. Marzook, a native of Gaza, was attending college in Ruston, La.,
when the foundation was launched in the United States.
According to the FBI, Mr. Marzook became chairman of the Hamas political
bureau in 1991. He was expelled from the United States in 1997 and lives
in Damascus, Syria, where he is Hamas' deputy political leader.
He has maintained that he had no role in Hamas fund-raising during the
14 years he lived in the United States. Mr. Marzook told the Reuters
news service in Damascus this week that the foundation's work was
charitable and that it had no links to Hamas' political or military
programs.
"This foundation could not be any further from the work of Hamas in any
way," he said.
Stanley Cohen, an attorney for Mr. Marzook, said he suspected that the
allegations in the 49-page FBI memo on the Holy Land Foundation have
been made previously, investigated, and disproved. Mr. Cohen said he had
not seen the memo.
"Whenever the government wants to scare everyone and play the national
security card, they roll out the old Marzook stuff," he said.
The memo said that in addition to his contributions to the Holy Land
Foundation, Mr. Marzook was behind his wife's $250,000 investment in a
Richardson Internet services business run by Mr. Elashi and his brothers.
That investment was cited by the Treasury Department in September as the
reason for freezing $70,000 in assets belonging to the Internet firm,
InfoCom Corp. The action was taken in conjunction with an FBI terrorism
task force search of InfoCom, which is across the street from Holy Land.
During a news conference Tuesday to announce the sanctions against the
Holy Land Foundation, Attorney General John Ashcroft described Mr.
Marzook as an early financial contributor to Holy Land and InfoCom.
Arch McColl, an attorney for InfoCom, said at a news conference in
September that the investment was Mrs. Marzook's and that his clients
had not had any business involvement with Mr. Marzook.
Mr. McColl could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The FBI memo also contends that Mr. Marzook had a significant role in
the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Richardson-based
organization that has helped raise money for the Holy Land Foundation
and whose local leadership has included another Elashi brother, Basman.
The Islamic association describes itself as an educational and
informational clearinghouse on Palestinian issues.
The FBI memo said Mr. Marzook established a bank account for IAP in
Northern Virginia in 1990 and deposited $125,000 in it during 1990 and
1991.
A tax report, filed by the IAP under the name American Middle Eastern
League for Palestine, showed that Ghassan and Basman Elashi donated
$12,500 to the organization in 1991, along with $7,000 from Ismael
Elbarasse, a friend and business partner of Mr. Marzook.
In August, the Dallas district office of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service filed a document in a deportation case involving
a former employee of the IAP. The document contended that Mr. Marzook
had contributed $490,000 to the IAP during his tenure as Hamas political
chief.
The Dallas Morning News obtained the INS document through a
request made under the Freedom of Information Act.
"This money came from the personal bank accounts of Marzook as well as
from a joint account he held with Ismael Elbarasse," the INS memo from
district director Anne Estrada said. "These facts strongly suggest the
IAP and AMEL are part of Hamas' propaganda apparatus."
Officials of the IAP have also denied any connection with Hamas.
Staff writer Todd Bensman contributed to this report.