Mufid Abdulqader (Twitter)
After 16 years behind bars, Mufid Abdulqader, a member of the Holy Land Five, has been released from prison into a halfway house. The case of the Holy Land 5 has become a symbol of U.S. unconstitutional overreach since 9/11.
By Michael Arrira, Reposted from Mondoweiss
After 16 years behind bars, Mufid Abdulqader, a member of the “Holy Land Five” has been released from prison into a halfway house. The Palestinian American is slated to spend one year at the facility.
The case of the Holy Land 5 has become a symbol of the unconstitutional overreach associated with U.S. counterterrorism since 9/11.
In 2009, five Palestinian-American Muslims received prison sentences as a result of their work with the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity. Prosecutors claimed that HLF funneled money to Hamas and charged the men with “material support for terrorism,” as the United States has designated Hamas as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Abdulqader received a 20-year prison sentence. Mohammad el-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh were given 15 years. Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker, 65 years.
Odeh was released from prison in 2021. El-Mezain was released from detention in 2022 before being deported to Turkey.
The Holy Land 5 received a criminal trial in 2007, which didn’t result in a single guilty verdict but the case was controversially deemed a mistrial. The judges in both allowed key evidence to be provided by two anonymous Israeli witnesses, an Israeli Security Agency employee and an Israeli Defense Forces intelligence officer.
The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups had been pressuring the U.S. government to target the HLF for years. In 2001 the Washington Post reported that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had called on then-President George W. Bush to move against the HLF during an Oval Office meeting:
Administration officials said that during an Oval Office meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked Bush to move against the Holy Land Foundation, and the president speedily obliged. “We — bam — did it,” a senior official said.
After blocking the bank accounts of the organization Bush addressed reporters in a Rose Garden ceremony. “Those who do business with terror will do no business with the United States — or anywhere else the United States can reach,” he declared. “The net is closing. Today it just got tighter.”
The men’s appeal was denied and the testimony of the anonymous Israeli witnesses was deemed “harmless.” A decision that HLF lawyer John Cline called, “The most ridiculous, dishonest, indefensible call by a federal court I ever saw in my life.”
Earlier this year the Palestine advocacy group Samidoun launched a Week of Action to free the Holy Land 5 and mark 15 years since their sentencing and conviction.
“From the initial attacks on the Holy Land Foundation, to the raids of the homes and offices, to the eventual convictions – these actions were all in an attempt to stop the Holy Land Foundation’s continued support of the Palestinian people,” wrote Samidoun Network organizer Salma Al Nour at Mondoweiss. “They were providing Palestinians with essential and life-saving resources and care that they needed in order to continue to remain steadfastly in their homes in the face of occupation and displacement by the Israeli government.”
“The story of the Holy Land Five and its destruction at the hands of the United States and Israeli governments is unique in the nature of these specific events, but not its essence,” she continued. “Distilled, it is a simple story of Palestinian survival, self-determination, and joy – three things that Palestinian are not allowed to have, at least not today, in the United States or in Occupied Palestine. However, through their steadfastness, struggle, and refusal to give up on life and freedom – the Holy Land 5 have dared to take these things anyway.”
Michael Arria is Mondoweiss’ U.S. correspondent. Find more of his works here.
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