Charitable Terror

In a case kept secret for nearly two months, the religious leader of a mosque in Rome, Ga., has pleaded guilty to providing financial support to the militant Palestinian organization Hamas, federal prosecutors said Friday.

The government said the 42-year-old defendant, Mohamed Shorbagi, a citizen of the Palestinian territories who is living legally in the United States with his wife and young children, was charged on Aug. 28 with providing aid to Hamas through donations he made to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an Islamic charity shut down by federal authorities in 2001.

Mr. Shorbagi was also a Georgia representative for the Holy Land Foundation and attended meetings that were addressed by “high level” Hamas officials, said David E. Nahmias, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Support for Hamas is illegal, because the government deems it a foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors said Mr. Shorbagi provided financial help to the group from 1997 until the Holy Land Foundation was shut down five years ago. In pleading guilty to material support of terrorism, he agreed to serve a maximum prison term of 15 years and pay restitution of at least $240,000 to unidentified victims of that support.

Seven former board members and fund-raisers for Holy Land, six of whom are American citizens, have previously been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists because they gave money to charities believed run by Hamas and to the orphans and families of “martyrs” killed in the Palestinian conflict.

And what could happen?

John W. Boyd, a partner in an Albuquerque law firm that has represented the Holy Land Foundation, said he was not familiar with the particulars of the case against Mr. Shorbagi and so could not comment on its merits. But he did say he was dismayed to hear that a donor to Holy Land had been charged, since, he said, that was likely to discourage people from giving to Palestinian relief organizations.

“It certainly is going to have that effect if there’s any aroma that donors are being targeted,” Mr. Boyd said. “If they’re now going to make it so that Islamic charities can’t function at all, that’s pretty dire.”

Gee, life as a terrorist is tough.