(AP/Fresno Bee) Former FBI terrorism expert Matthew Levitt, director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told a federal jury Monday that the Quranic Literacy Institute of Oak Lawn, IL, served as "a money-laundering clearinghouse" for the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The testimony came in a lawsuit filed by Joyce and Stanley Boim, the parents of an American teenager shot to death by two Hamas militants in Israel eight years ago, who say the institute, two Islamic charities, and an alleged Hamas fundraiser, Mohammed Salah, bankrolled the purchase of weapons by Hamas and thus are responsible for the death of their son David. Levitt used canceled checks to show that Salah received payments averaging $3,000 a month in the early 1990s from a Saudi whose name appears on federal government terrorism lists.
2004-12-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive