Man Tied to Charity Stays in Jail

A Buena Park man arrested this summer in an FBI investigation of an Islamic charity accused of funneling millions to the Palestinian group Hamas will remain jailed without bond because he is a national security threat, an immigration law judge has ruled.

Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, 44, a former fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, was arrested on an immigration law violation. Department of Homeland Security authorities said he had been in the United States illegally on a student visa issued 25 years ago.

U.S. Immigration Judge D.D. Sitgraves said in a 42-page ruling released Monday that although Hamdan was not charged with terrorism, he aided and abetted terrorism through his fundraiser role.

Hamdan, a Muslim born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, remains jailed while the foundation’s president, chairman and director of endowments, who were charged with terrorism-related crimes in an indictment unsealed in Dallas, were ordered freed on their own recognizance in August. The federal judge who freed them ruled the government failed to prove they were a threat to national security and flight risks.

The foundation’s attorney, John Boyd, said those indicted in the case were freed without bond but that travel restrictions were imposed. He said the charity did not support terrorism.

In Hamdan’s case, Sitgraves said he did not qualify for release because the Department of Homeland Security met the U.S.A. Patriot Act requirement of showing reasonable grounds to believe an immigrant has ties to terrorism.

There were “reasonable grounds to believe [Hamdan] is a danger to the security of the United States” because of his association with the Islamic charity, she wrote.

Attorney Marc Van Der Hout blasted Sitgraves’ ruling and filed a motion to remove her from the case as the government continues with its attempt to deport Hamdan. In a six-page brief filed Wednesday, Van Der Hout said Sitgraves had prejudged Hamdan and could not be fair and impartial in a deportation hearing.

“Only another judge ... who has not prejudged this case nor imported any extrajudicial information” can issue a fair ruling at a deportation hearing, Van Der Hout argued. The attorney pointed to Sitgraves’ finding that Hamdan is also a member of the Islamic Assn. for Palestine, a group she said would have “pre-designation in the future” as a terrorist organization.

“The Islamic Assn. for Palestine has not been designated a terrorist group, and the Department of Homeland Security never alleged that in my client’s case,” Van Der Hout said. Sitgraves “was injecting her own bias in saying the [group] would be put on the terrorist list in the future. The court’s recusal is called for this reason alone.”

Sitgraves’ ruling noted that Hamdan had met with FBI agents on several occasions before his arrest and “and cooperated fully.” The judge also noted that he asked the charity’s leaders about reports tying the group to Hamas on several occasions but was told the reports were exaggerated.

Still, Sitgraves said Hamdan should have known about the foundation’s ties to Hamas, which the U.S. government has said is a terrorist organization. In 1993 he attended a conference in Philadelphia in which secret evidence compiled by federal agents showed that three senior Holy Land Foundation leaders met with five senior Hamas officials.

Hamdan told officials he was unaware of the foundation’s ties to Hamas and would have resigned if he knew the charity was involved in terrorism. He worked for the Holy Land Foundation from the early 1990s until it was closed in 2001.

Hamdan was arrested on July 27, the same day that seven other men affiliated with the foundation were indicted in Texas on terrorism-related crimes. Authorities shut down the Dallas-based charity in December 2001 and seized its assets because it allegedly financed Hamas, which U.S. authorities said aided the families of suicide bombers and Hamas-dominated schools and hospitals. Hamdan was swept up when the FBI began making arrests in the Holy Land Foundation investigation, which began after the 9/11 attacks.

His arrest became a rallying cry for local Muslims, who staged weekly protests at the Civic Center Plaza in Santa Ana during the summer. He was arrested at his home by FBI and immigration agents. Hamdan has lived in the United States for 25 years and in Great Britain before arriving in this country. He has never been convicted of a crime.

He graduated from USC with a degree in civil engineering. He is married and has six U.S.-born children.