[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Good news about CAIR

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Good news about CAIR
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1180972485.shtml


   Via the [1]New York Sun:

     Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic
     organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal
     conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

     Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the
     Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North
     America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a
     trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct
     charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

     While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in
     2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator
     designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national
     Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with
     government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.

   [2]Daniel Pipes predicts * the effects of this gut punch to the
   Islamists' local PR machine..

     What is an unindicted co-conspirator? Someone by and about whom
     hearsay is permissible in the courtroom. Here is a definition by
     legal journalist Stuart Taylor, discussing an entirely unrelated
     case:

     The prosecutor is saying in essence in court ⦠that we believe
     this man was part of the criminal conspiracy, along with the people
     who are on trial. We haven't indicted him but the relevance of that
     for the purposes of the trial is that [it] lets them get in more
     evidence about the unindicted co-conspirator's ⦠out-of-court
     statements than they otherwise could. It's a way around the hearsay
     rule. ⦠For example, if they want ⦠one of their witnesses, to
     talk about what [a person] said to him, ordinarily that would be
     barred by the so-called hearsay rule. You can't ⦠testify in a
     trial about what somebody else said out of court. That rule has a
     lot of exceptions. One of the exceptions is if the person who
     you're trying to quote ⦠is named by the prosecution as an
     unindicted co-conspirator, then you can talk about what he said out
     of court.

     Substitute "organization" for "man" and "person" and this
     description applies to the situation of CAIR ISNA, and NAIT.

     Comments: (1) CAIR being named as an unindicted co-conspirator
     complements the fact that many of its staff and associates are
     associated with terrorism, as I have [3]documented in this entry.

     (2) It is only logical that CAIR, whose origins lie in the
     [4]Islamic Association for Palestine, which was founded by Hamas,
     be legally investigated in connection with Hamas.

     (3) This may be the first time since 1994 that the press could not
     find a CAIR spokesman for a comment.

   I think (3) says it all.

   * link thanks to Brazilian Neocon

References

   1. http://www.nysun.com/article/55778
   2. http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/32
   3. http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/32
   4. http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/98