Imagine for a moment that you are a terrorist. Besides blowing up people and buildings and spreading mayhem, you decide to win a few hearts and minds by opening a soup kitchen. Then you attract a supporter who helps you raise significant money; when this supporter is arrested, he says, “Oh, I was just supporting the soup kitchen. I didn’t know they were killing anyone.”
Have things gotten so bad that we have to spell this out? Even if this imaginary terrorist group really does have an accounting system that allows the big supporter’s money to be used only for its soup kitchen, that frees up other money to buy bombs. Sheesh. Some of these judges should go back to elementary school: Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a terrorist group. I know it. You know it. The State Department knows it. Now we’re supposed to believe that Sami Al-Arian, who was in regular contact with members of the group itself, didn’t know it?
From UPI:
U.S. District Judge James Moody raised the bar Thursday for the prosecution of Professor Sami al-Arian of the University of South Florida and his three co-defendants, who raised funds for Islamic Jihad, saying a conviction must be predicated on proving the defendants knew their fundraising facilitated continued illegal activity, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported….
“They will have to show that the support they allege Dr. Al-Arian provided was directly connected to the violence the group carried out,” said attorney Bill Moffitt. “It significantly raises the burden of proof, and rightly so.”