Holy Land charity takes seizure fight to court
Posted on 07/18/2002 1:28:43 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Holy Land charity takes seizure fight to court
Richardson group wants U.S. to return assets, denies terror link
07/18/2002
WASHINGTON - Attorneys for a Texas-based Muslim charity accused of bankrolling international terrorism head to court Thursday to demand the return of millions of dollars seized by the U.S. government.
Lawyers for the now-dormant Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was based in Richardson, contend that the government's freeze was predicated on the false claim that the organization funneled money to the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
"The government has branded Holy Land a terrorist, seized the foundation's assets and put its employees out of work on the basis of an administrative record that is false in material respects," the organization's lawyers wrote in a legal filing this month.
They insist that the charity was solely dedicated to charitable and humanitarian aid in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Saying Holy Land's constitutional, religious and administrative rights were violated, they sued in March, asking a federal judge to force the Bush administration to unblock financial assets and return other property seized in a Dec. 4 raid on its offices in Texas, California, Illinois and New Jersey.
The raids and seizures followed an FBI investigation of nearly nine years.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the seizures were appropriate.
Documentary evidence
In court papers, they cited a "vast majority of documentary evidence" showing that Holy Land "raised money on behalf of Hamas, received funding from Hamas, took direction from Hamas leadership and from its beginnings until its designation [as a terrorist organization] distributed money to Hamas-controlled organizations."
Hamas, a militant Islamic organization dedicated to Israel's destruction, has claimed responsibility for a rash of lethal suicide bombings.
The Bush administration last year froze millions of dollars held by Holy Land and two Chicago-area Islamic charities Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation charging that all three funded terrorist activities.
Representatives of the organizations have vigorously disputed the allegations, each going to court to challenge the seizures as unconstitutional.
If the results in the Global Relief litigation so far offer any road map, attorneys for Holy Land may have a hard time prevailing in court.
A federal judge in Chicago refused last month to lift the order freezing Global Relief's assets, saying the organization probably wouldn't be able to prove that its constitutional rights had been violated.
Attorneys for the Justice Department have raised the same point in the Holy Land case, which comes before U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington on Thursday.
"Plaintiff cannot meet its burden of showing that the designation of Holy Land Foundation and the blocking of its assets had no rational basis," the government lawyers wrote recently.
'Without probable cause'
Holy Land contends, however, that the government overreached by seizing its assets "without notice, without a hearing, without a warrant, without probable cause, without statutory authority and without any rational basis."
The actions by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control were predicated on a biased, faulty administrative record, Holy Land lawyers contend. They're asking the judge to consider additional evidence they've compiled.
"A rational and impartial agency, confronted with evidence that its decision to brand an American charity a terrorist and put it out of business rested on flawed information, would welcome [indeed demand] a full airing of the facts," they wrote. "But the government has taken the opposite tack here.
" ... Despite powerful evidence that the administrative record is incomplete and skewed, the government demands that the court blinder itself and adhere to that record, regardless of its flaws and outright falsity."
Justice lawyers defend the accuracy of the record. They are battling the foundation's attempt to have the judge consider outside information, saying Holy Land rejected an opportunity to provide additional evidence during the administrative process. They also contend it's outside the judge's purview to consider such evidence.
"Courts in this circuit and elsewhere have routinely rejected attempts by those challenging agency action to proffer evidence beyond the administrative record," the Justice attorneys wrote in a recent filing.
Limited review
The government insists that the judiciary has only a limited right of review, arguing that its decision to freeze Holy Land's assets constituted an administrative act.
"This court should also accord deference to the executive branch when considering plaintiff's claims," the Justice Department said.
"Whether or not courts afford such deference in the nonemergency domestic context, there is a well-established practice of deferring to the executive branch's actions in the area of national security and foreign policy even when adjudicating constitutional claims."
E-mail mmittelstadt@dallasnews.com
"Courts in this circuit and elsewhere have routinely rejected attempts by those challenging agency action to proffer evidence beyond the administrative record," the Justice attorneys wrote in a recent filing.
The "right thing" may have resulted in this case, but this sounds like bureaucracy run amok. Administrative process and an "opportunity to provide additional evidence"? Surely that is a joke! The Feds shut down these organizations posthaste after 9/11. What did they get, one hour to respond?
"Plaintiff cannot meet its burden of showing that the designation of Holy Land Foundation and the blocking of its assets had no rational basis," the government lawyers wrote recently.
Unfortunately, as an extreme PC leftist, Judge Kessler cannot be counted on to rule on any sort of rational legal basis. She is the one who sealed the record on the DNC's laundering of illegal political donations from big labor, and who upheld Mary Francis Berry in extending the expired term of a Civil Rights Commission member in order to keep out President Bush's appointee.
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