Libby trial not the first time for Miller and Fitzgerald - Jury Acquits Two Men of Hamas Conspiracy

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020101377_2.html?referrer=emailarticle

The case was prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is in the spotlight as the special counsel in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

The Hamas prosecution also featured another central player in the Libby saga: former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who testified on behalf of prosecutors in Chicago about an Israeli interrogation session with Salah that she witnessed in the early 1990s.




http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N01356156&WTmodLoc=World-R5-Alertnet-3


AnU.S. jury acquits two men of Hamas conspiracy
Thu 1 Feb 2007 21:35:20 GMT
(Adds updates with quotes, details)

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. jury found two Palestinian-born men not guilty on Thursday of carrying out what prosecutors said was a 15-year conspiracy to illegally finance Hamas terrorist activities in Israel.

Muhammad Salah, 53, and co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 48, were acquitted of racketeering conspiracy, the major charge against them and one that could have drawn a sentence of 40 years to life.

They were found guilty on lesser obstruction of justice charges, relating in Salah's case to his statements on whether he actually belonged to Hamas and Ashqar's refusal to answer questions from two grand juries. The obstruction charges call for up to a five-year sentence, but also allow for probation, lawyers said.

"It is better than we thought," a tearful Salah, a businessman from the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, Illinois, said as he left the courtroom. "We are good people, not terrorists."

Ashqar taught at Howard University in Washington and lives in Springfield, Virginia.

Women were on the their knees outside the courtroom praying before the verdict was read by the jury, which had deliberated over the course of three weeks following a 10-week trial.
other high-profile prosecution witness was former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who toured Salah's prison in Israel and saw part of his interrogation -- later writing a front-page article relating to it.

[madrchsod]

1. they crossed paths before this

remember fitzgerald wanted the phone records from the nyt in the plame case? the judge struck down the request because fitzgerald could get the info he wanted but not by using this case. fitzgerald was looking at miller for tipping off the saudi`s in an earlier case in bridgeport involving saudi funneling money to the balkans and areas in the middle east. his case was destroyed because the saudi`s had time to dump the information off their computers.