U.S. prosecutors wrap up case against alleged Hamas financiers

Federal prosecutors wrapped up their case against two men accused of aiding the militant Palestinian group Hamas, saying the men furnished funds and fresh recruits to spread "death, destruction, fear and terror."

Former Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah and co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar were "important players" with the Hamas terrorist network, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Ferguson told a federal court jury in closing arguments capping a three-month trial that included testimony by torture experts and Israeli agents adopting assumed identities.

"The Hamas organization engaged in a purposeful and strategic campaign to spread death, destruction, fear and terror in pursuit of its overall objective to remove the State of Israel from the map," Ferguson said.

Salah, 53, and Ashqar, 48, a former assistant professor of business at Washington's Howard University, are charged with a racketeering scheme that provided money and men to the Hamas organization in the early 1990s.

Both men deny that they are Hamas members and say that nothing they did violated the law, even though they hold strong anti-Israel views.

Salah has said that after his January 1993 arrest he was tortured by Israel's Shin Bet security agents into making incriminating statements, and prosecutors called in an Israeli agent, who testified using an alias, to counter that claim.

Defense attorneys have not yet delivered their closing arguments.

Ferguson warned jurors not to allow themselves to be diverted from their main task by being caught up in the Israeli-Palestinian debate and the nuances of Mideast politics.

"People have been in conflict over that little plot of land for hundreds and thousands of years," Ferguson said. He said the issue was that the two men have violated American laws against financing murder, kidnappings and terror.

Ferguson said Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook furnished Salah with "cold hard cash" to deliver to Hamas forces in Israel. While in Israel in January 1993, Salah was arrested and ended up serving almost five years.