The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was the largest Islamic charity in the United States. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas, and run by Palestinian-Americans, it was originally known as Occupied Land Fund. The organization's mission was to "find and implement practical solutions for human suffering through humanitarian programs that impact the lives of the disadvantaged, disinherited, and displaced peoples suffering from man-made and natural disasters."
During the 1990s, American politicians, including Chuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer, alongside the Israeli government and Steve Emerson, lobbied the U.S. government to take action against the Holy Land Foundation. In December 2001, the U.S. designated HLF a terrorist organization, seized its assets, and closed the organization. At the time it was the largest Muslim charitable organisation in the United States. It had been under FBI surveillance since 1994, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"). In 2004, a federal grand jury in Dallas, Texas, charged HLF and five former officers and employees with providing material support to Hamas and related offenses. The prosecution's hypothesis was that HLF distributed charity through local zakat (charity) committees located in the West Bank that paid stipends to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners; that Hamas controlled those zakat committees; that by distributing charity through Hamas-controlled committees, HLF helped Hamas build a grassroots support amongst the Palestinian people; and that these charity front organizations served a dual purpose of laundering the money for all of Hamas's activities.
Simultaneously, in November 2004, a U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled that HLF, along with Hamas-linked organizations the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), were liable for a 1996 killing of 17-year-old David Boim in Israel. This decision was the first time U.S. citizens or organizations were held liable under a 1990 federal law that permitted victims of terrorism to sue for civil damages.
The first trial, in 2007, ended in the partial acquittal of one defendant and a hung jury on all other charges. At a retrial in 2008, the jury found all defendants guilty on all counts. The 2008 trial of the charity leaders was the "largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history." In 2009, the founders of the organization were given sentences of between 15 and 65 years in prison for "funnelling $12 million to Hamas."
The trial has been criticised by some NGOs, including Human Rights Watch. Civil rights attorney Emily Ratner wrote that the use of anonymous and hearsay evidence by the prosecutors was “constitutionally questionable” at best. Families of the men charged, known as the Holy Land Five, have demanded their release.
Designation as a terrorist organization
In 1988 Shukri Abu Baker established a tax-exempt charity, called the Occupied Land Fund, based in Indiana. The following year the charity raised $300,000. Two years later the OLF was incorporated by Baker, Ghassan Elashi, and Mohammad el-Mezain in California and renamed the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. In 1992, the HLF relocated to Richardson, Texas. It had offices in California, New Jersey, and Illinois, and individual representatives scattered throughout the US, the West Bank, and Gaza.
Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, a political leader of Hamas and long time US resident, donated $210,000 to HLF in the early 1992. The donation was made before Hamas became a Designated Terrorist Organization. During this time, the US government alleged that Marzook led Baker, el-Mezain, and Elashi to create other Hamas-supporting organizations in the United States, including media entity Islamic Association of Palestine, and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). Abu Baker was reported having been on IAP's board. The 1992 donation was fully disclosed on the HLF's tax returns. Marzook was deported from the US to Jordan in 1997. He was indicted on August 20, 2004, by a US federal grand jury in Chicago, Illinois. He and two other individuals were charged with a 15-year conspiracy to raise funds for terrorist attacks against Israel. Neither HLF nor any HLF officer was charged in the Chicago indictment.
In 1994, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress launched a campaign demanding that the IRS revoke the HLF's tax-exempt status; the campaign was supported by Charles Schumer, Nita Lowey and Eliot Spitzer.