Mr. Salah and the Bridgeview, Illinois HAMAS Connection

Five months ago in Chicago on August 20, 2004, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed a grand jury indictment, “United States of America v. Marzook, Salah and Ashqar,”* accusing the three Hamas leaders of a 15-year racketeering conspiracy to raise many millions of dollars used to pay for the murder, kidnapping and assault of Israelis, as well as for passport fraud. The three men are not charged with participating in, or knowing about the particulars of, the terrorist attacks. But the U.S. makes no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance, manage or supervise terrorist organizations, according to a statement made by Secretary of State Ashcroft on Friday, August 20, 2004.

The Chicago indictment came only one month after a Dallas grand jury handed up another indictment, “United States of America v. Holy Land Foundation,” previously essayed in Biot #166**, charging HLF, the nation’s largest Muslim charity, and seven of its officials with funneling money to Hamas.

The U.S. Justice Department Chicago indictment is unusual because it views Hamas as a “criminal enterprise,” like a drug gang or the mafia, to which U.S. federal authorities legally can apply racketeering and conspiracy statutes. An enterprise, according to Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4), is “a group of individuals associated in fact, and which enterprise was engaged in, and the activities of which affected, interstate and foreign commerce. Hamas constituted an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for a common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise. The objectives of Hamas were the forcing of the State and citizens of Israel to cede physical and political control over the lands comprising Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and the replacement of the Israeli political authority over these lands with an Islamic government, through means that included the promotion and execution of acts of terrorism.” (p. 9-10, indictment)

The terrorist acts for which Hamas has repeatedly and publicly claimed credit include, but are not limited to, the following:

• April 1994 car bombing of a public bus in Afula, Israel, killing eight Israelis;
• October 1994 suicide bombing on a public bus in Tel Aviv that killed 13 Israelis and a Dutch national;
• February 1996 suicide bombing on a public bus in Jerusalem that killed 24 Israelis and two Americans;
• March 1996 suicide bombing on a public bus in Jerusalem that killed eight Israelis, an Ethiopian, and seven Romanians;
• May 1996 drive-by shooting at students waiting at a public bus stop in Beit El in the West Bank in which American student David Boim was killed; and
• July 1997 two suicide bombing in a market in Jerusalem that killed 16 Israelis.

The three defendants have been charged in the August 2004 indictment with the following:

a. First degree murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder;

b. Solicitation of first degree murder;

c. Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons in a foreign country;

d. Money laundering and attempt and conspiracy to do so;

e. Obstruction of justice;

f. Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations and attempt and conspiracy to do so;

g. Hostage taking and attempt and conspiracy to do so;

h. Forgery or false use of passport and attempt to do so; and

i. Travel in aid of racketeering enterprises.

1. Who is Mr. Mazook?

Mr. Mazook

Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook (approximately 53 years old; many aliases, henceforth Mazook) is currently deputy chief (formerly chief) of the Hamas Political Bureau, which sets policies and issues guidelines governing Hamas activities, including directing and coordinating terrorist acts by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the political wing of Hamas..

Marzook was born in Rafa in the Gaza Strip in 1951. He earned an engineering degree from Ein Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, in 1977 followed by a four-year stint working as a manager of a factory in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 1981 he moved to the U.S. to pursue higher education (he had made earlier shorter trips, the first in approximately 1974) and eventually earned a Ph.D. (awarded in 1991) in industrial engineering from Louisiana Tech University, a member of the University of Louisiana system. In 1990, he and his family (wife, six children, four born in the U.S.) received their “green cards” from the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service, now integrated into the Department of Homeland Security***) in a lottery that offered "permanent legal residency" to potential immigrants.

While in the U.S. Marzook was active with Hamas activities from its founding in August 1988 until late 1992 when he departed for the Hamas offices in Damascus, Syria and then Jordan. On July 25, 1995, after being expelled from Jordan, Marzook tried to reenter the U.S. from the UAE with his wife and four of their children, but was detained by U.S. authorities at Kennedy Airport in NY. His family was released the following day. However, Marzook, who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., was held by U.S. authorities as an “excludable alien” under a statute that applies to any “alien who has engaged in a terrorist activity” or is considered likely by U.S. authorities to do so after entering the U.S. Israel dropped its bid for extradition of Mazook because it did not feel that it could establish its charges against him. The U.S. could not bring a criminal case against Marzook in spite of declaring Hamas a terrorist organization in January 1995, because U.S. intelligence agencies were not permitted to share with criminal investigators the information they had collected about terrorism suspects. (The PATRIOT Act, passed one month after the 9/11 attacks, allows such sharing.)

Marzook was finally expelled from the U.S. in 1997 to join his family in Jordan. In 1999, he was expelled from Jordan during a Jordanian government crackdown on Hamas operations in the country. He then moved to Damascus, Syria, but again left Damascus following Yassin’s assassination on March 22, 2004. Today, January 25, 2005, he remains a fugitive from the American justice system. His whereabouts are unknown.

While living in Falls Church in the early 1990s, Marzook became leader of Hamas. How did this happen? Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas founder and leader, in 1989 was charged by Israel with murder, possession of weapons, incitement, the illegal transfer of $500,000, and recruiting members for Hamas, and in 1991, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment plus fifteen years. The removal of Sheikh Yassin created a vacuum that temporarily destroyed Hamas’ ability to function . In his absence, Hamas's second tier of leadership, including such men as Marzook in the U.S., rebuilt the organization's infrastructure. Marzook eventually became acting leader of the movement.******

Marzook compartmentalized the tasks of Hamas's leadership into three areas of responsibility: the Political Committee, which he headed; the Propaganda Committee, and the Jihad Committee. Next, he similarly compartmentalized the organization in the West Bank and Gaza, its theater of operations. He arrived in Gaza in September 1989 along with Muhammad Salah, among others and appointed Salah responsible for Hamas's security and military affairs (the Al-Qassam Brigades).

Marzook further compartmentalized the activities of Hamas into three categories: Security Apparatus, Activities Apparatus, and Propaganda Apparatus. The Security Apparatus carried out surveillance on individuals suspected of collaborating with the Israeli authorities. The Activities Apparatus was responsible for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, setting up road blocks during strikes, holding demonstrations, and painting graffiti slogans on the walls. The Propaganda Apparatus was supposed to publish Hamas materials and maintain ties with journalists in Israel; in practice, the job of producing the materials is now carried out by Hamas's leadership in the United States.******

Marzook masterminded Hamas money management in the U.S. From at least as early as 1989 and through January 1993, he used various accounts at financial institutions throughout the U.S. to transfer large sums of money from various sources abroad through the U.S. to Israel (and the Al-Qassam Brigades) and elsewhere, which the indictment carefully documents.

2. Who is Mr. Salah?

Mr. Salah

Source:

J. Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah (approximately 51 years old; many aliases, henceforth Salah) is a member of the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview (suburb of Chicago). He was born in Jerusalem and grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp before moving to Chicago in 1970 and becoming a naturalized citizen. He studied chemical engineering, worked with his brothers in grocery stores, and later was a used-car broker and a school teacher.

Like Marzook, Salah began working on behalf of Hamas in 1988, according to the indictment. Beginning in 1990, Salah, as a member of the Hamas security committee, was responsible, among other things, for the identification of Palestinian men studying in the U.S., for the purpose of attempting to recruit those Palestinian men into Hamas. He “compiled information on the Palestinian men which included their fields of study, the projected completion dates of their study, the projected dates of their return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and their capacity to participate in terrorist activities against Israel.

This process produced numerous names which the security committee sorted based on their knowledge of chemistry, physics, computer science, and military operations. Sometime in the early 1990s, the individuals identified by the security committee were tested and eventually narrowed down to a small number of individual candidates for operational roles in Hamas terrorist activities [including] advanced training in military operations and bomb-making…from Hamas military operatives” in the Middle East. (p. 16, indictment) In sum, Salah recruited and trained new members of Hamas in the U.S.

Between 1992 and 1993, Salah traveled often between Chicago and the Middle East to effect transfer of large sums of money to various leaders of the Al-Qassam Brigades and to assess Hamas’s abilities to continue to carry out terrorist attacks, particularly after Israel deported over 400 Hamas members and other radicals from Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip in late December 1992 and early January 1993. On January 25, 1993, Israeli authorities arrested Salah based on his involvement in Hamas, to which he confessed.

After his release from prison in Israel November 1997, he returned to Chicago where he said he volunteered as a computer analyst at the Quranic Literacy Institute, an Islamic education center in Oak Lawn, Illinois. In the late 1990s, federal prosecutors seized more than $1.4 million in cash and assets from Salah and the Quranic Literacy Institute, which was accused of funding and helping to conceal Salah’s activities. He also directed and financed the travel of a Chicago-based associate to scout potential terrorist targets in Israel, according to the indictment.

In April 2001, the Boim family filed a civil suit in federal court in Chicago against the Quranic Literacy Institute, et al., alleging that defendants Salah and Marzook, among others in Hamas, were responsible for the death of their son, David Boim, who was murdered in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank in May 1996. Salah knowingly provided false information, according to the August 2004 indictment, in sworn testimony in the Boim civil suit, including the false information that he had never provided or delivered funds for the purpose of supporting Hamas, that he only provided funds to a very limited number of individuals, that he was not a member of Hamas, that he did not know Marzook, that he had never trained or attended training sessions of Hamas members, and that he had never transferred funds in excess of $1,000 to Marzook and others (p. 33, indictment)

In 2002, Salah, a father of four, applied for a job as a part-time lecturer on computer systems at City Colleges of Chicago’s Olive-Harvey College, but was fired in 2003 for failing to disclose the Israel conviction. He also worked for a time as a substitute teacher for the Chicago Public Schools and was removed from the list of approved substitutes at the same time he was fired by Olive-Harvey College. When Salah was arrested on August 20, 2004, he requested release from jail for scheduled outpatient surgery at Christ Hospital, Oak Lawn. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve denied the request.

On September 15, 2004, Judge St. Eve ordered Salah released on $1.4 million bond, which was posted using the value of homes pledged by friends and relatives. Judge St. Eve allegedly “said she allowed bond in part because prosecutors face ‘significant legal hurdles’ in the case, but she set the bond high because of the seriousness of the charges.”******* Salah must wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet that restricts his movement to within 150 feet of his home except when he is visiting his lawyer or in court.

If convicted, racketeering conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, providing material support to a terrorist organization carries a maximum of 15 years in prison; and each count of obstruction of justice carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. Marzook and Salah are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Sources:

*”United States of America v. Marzook, Salah, and Ashqar,” available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/indict/2004/marzook_et_al.pd f#search='united%20states%20of%20america%20marzook'.

**See SEMP Biot #166 “United States of America v. Holy Land Foundation: A Case Study of U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts” available at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_166.html.

***See Biot SEMP Biot #125: “Transforming U.S. Immigration Programs,” available at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_125.html.

**** Oxon Hill development has ties to terror Hamas leader, man accused of al Qaeda link invested in Barnaby Knolls,” Washington Post, April 19, 2004, available at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4773766/.

***** United Association for Studies and Research, Inc. see:http://www.uasr.org/.

****** “Focus on Hamas: Terror by Remote Control” by Yehudit Barsky, inThe Middle East Quarterly, June 1996, vol. 3, no. 2, available at: http://www.meforum.org/article/300.