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Motion Seeks To Clear Names of Two Islamic Charities

By Howard M. Friedman

In an unusual motion filed yesterday in federal district court in Texas, the ACLU of Texas is helping two mainstream Muslim charities clear their names. (ACLU press release). In its prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, the federal government in a pre-trial brief filed last May named the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) as unindicted co-conspirators. Yesterday's motion asks the court to declare the public naming of the charities as unindicted co-conspirators to be a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights and to order expungement of their names from any public document filed or issued by the government that identifies them in this way. Petitioners' Memorandum of Law In Support of Their Motion (full text ) says:

In discussions with petitioners? counsel ... the government confirmed that it did not believe either ISNA or NAIT had engaged in wrongdoing.... The lead HLF prosecutor explained to petitioners? counsel that "the government?s public designation of ISNA and NAIT was a legal tactic" intended to permit the introduction of hearsay evidence.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on June 19, 2008 (boomark / email).