Judge in terrorism case urged to throw out statements as product of torture

MIKE ROBINSON

Associated Press

CHICAGO – A Chicago man charged with laundering money for the Palestinian militant group Hamas was “threatened, tortured, beaten and made to fear for his life” before he signed statements admitting being part of the terrorist group, his lawyer told a federal judge Friday.

Muhammad Salah would never have signed the statements after his 1993 arrest if he had not been deprived of sleep by his Israeli captors and made to sit in a tiny chair with a foul-smelling hood over his head, his attorney Michael E. Deutsch told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.

“Don’t allow them to use these statements in an American court,” Deutsch pleaded as St. Eve opened a scheduled two-week hearing to determine if the statements were sufficiently voluntary to be used as evidence at Salah’s trial on money laundering charges, which is set for October.

Prosecutors say that Salah’s statements were made voluntarily and therefore meet the standards imposed by the American system of justice for evidence used at criminal trials.

They acknowledge that Salah was housed by the Israelis in a prison where inmates, in “an orchestrated ruse,” pretended to be Hamas military leaders and got him to write a report on his activities so terrorists on the outside could make a “damage assessment” and carry on his work.

“The result was an extraordinary, 53-page document, handwritten by Salah, in which he provided chapter and verse of his activities for Hamas that included recruiting efforts, military training efforts, financing efforts and other activities,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Ferguson said.

Over objections from defense attorneys, St. Eve has blocked out time for two Israeli agents to testify in a closed courtroom under assumed names with heavy security for several days next week. They are expected to say that Salah was not tortured while he was in their custody.

Ferguson repeatedly described Salah as a liar and said he would not be taking the witness stand in his own defense because he is afraid to be cross-examined by federal prosecutors about his claims to have been mistreated.

“Indeed, the evidence will show that Salah admitted having made the claims up,” he said.

Salah was born in Jerusalem and moved to the United States in 1970. He is a naturalized American citizen and has long lived in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview.

He was indicted in August 2004 along with Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar of Alexandria, Va., and Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, believed to be living in Damascus, Syria, on charges of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy to provide money for terrorist acts in Israel.

Salah and Ashqar deny the charges. Marzook, who is described by federal officials as the deputy military leader of Hamas, is classified as a fugitive.

Salah was on what he described as a charity mission to Israel in January 1993 when he was arrested. He pleaded guilty in 1995 to helping to funnel $650,000 to Hamas and served nearly five years in an Israeli prison. He later returned to live in the Chicago area.

Deutsch said that over 53 days of interrogation in which he was kept at times in a “refrigeration cell” and kept up for days at a time Salah became “a broken man.”

“He was threatened, beaten, tortured and made to fear for his life and his family,” Deutsch said. He said that Salah would have said anything to stop the torture and that any statements he made should not stand up as evidence in an American court.

Prosecutors did not contradict Deutsch when he told St. Eve that he believed the government would “take her in the back room” and show her secret evidence to be hidden from the defense during the trial.

Before the hearing, Salah’s supporters gathered in the lobby of the courthouse to denounce the use of Salah’s statements against him, saying they were obtained through torture.

Ali Abunimah, vice president of the Arab American Action Network, said that a “crucial question for all Americans is whether the United States will allow so-called evidence, obtained by a foreign regime that routinely uses torture, to be laundered through American courts.”

But Chicago attorney Stephen Landes, who two years ago won a $156 million judgment against Salah and three Islamic groups in a civil suit stemming from a murder in Israel, said there was ample reason to admit Salah’s statements.

He said Salah admitted in the statements that he had close ties to Marzook and as such “he was on the payroll of a master terrorist.”

The CPPR review of the case:

In 1992, Mohammad Salah a dedicated father and U.S. Citizen, traveled to Palestine on a humanitarian mission. Mr. Salah was stopped at a Gaza checkpoint, arrested and
detained by Israeli Occupying Forces without legal and moral justification.

For almost 5 years Mr. Salah was imprisoned in an Israeli prison where he was
interrogated for a period of 80 days and systematically tortured. What Mr.
Salah endured during those months in that Israeli prison is an extreme violation
of his Human Rights, International Law and his rights as a citizen of the United States of America.

The immoral and illegal act of arrest, detention and torture such as the one perpetrated against Mr. Salah has been condemned by International Human rights organizations and even Israel’s own Supreme Court. In 1997, following Mr. Salah’s arrest, detention and torture in Israel he was allowed to return to the United States.

While Mr. Salah was detained the United States launched an investigation of Mr. Salah, his family and community. Following the launch the United States government froze his and his family’s financial assets, to the extent that they could not support themselves economically. However, both the United States and the Israeli governments were unable to arrest Mr. Salah again or continue to freeze his and his family’s financial assets because their investigations uncovered no evidence of any
criminal activity, thus proving his innocence.

However, both the United States and Israeli government despite proving his innocence, continued the witch-hunt against Mr. Salah and his family under the guise of the War on Terrorism. In 2004, (12 years later) Mr. Salah was arrested and taken away from his family once more. He was accused of assisting a terrorist organization. These accusations by the United States are based on a forced confession obtained under brutal Israeli torture. The forced confession is in Hebrew, a language that Mr. Salah was not literate in at the time.

On March 6th there will be a hearing in Chicago to determine whether or not the confession obtained under brutal Israeli torture in Israel can be admitted in a US Federal Case.

For more information:

Suzanne Adely [1-773-510-7446]
Menna Khalil [1-630-674-1626]

Suzanne Adely
Arab American Action Network
3148 West 63rd Street
Chicago, IL 60629
Phone: 773-436-6060 Ext. 105
Fax: 773-436-6460
Email:
s_adely@yahoo.com